


Laid Bare

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Aliens, Anxiety Attacks, Domestic Violence, Eating Disorders, F/M, First Contact, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Pregnancy, Psychology, Telepathy, Vulcan Culture, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-06-20 23:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: Deanna Troi unravels a psychological mystery.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightbird (snarky_panda)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarky_panda/gifts).



> Way back in 2015, I posted an open call for writing prompts. lightbird asked for "Troi generally being awesome a la 'Face of the Enemy'". Almost three years and over 30k words later, this happened. I don't think this is quite what she had in mind (it is nothing like 'Face of the Enemy' for one thing), but it's where my mind ended up. Hope you like it! Sorry for the wait. :-/
> 
> Huge thanks to Beatrice Otter for the beta, and most especially for the reassurance.

"When did it start?"

Lieutenant Taurik sat with both feet on the ground, his hands neatly folded is his lap. His face was arranged into an impassive expression, though she could see some tension in his eyes and in the line of his mouth. He met her eyes easily. "Three days, twelve hours, and nineteen minutes ago."

"Tell me about the circumstances."

Taurik stared into the middle distance, eyes becoming slightly unfocused. "I was walking to my quarters after my duty shift. I was on Deck 19, on my way to the turbolift. Nothing unusual had occurred during my duty shift, or in the days prior."

Deanna had raised the temperature in the room by five degrees to accommodate Taurik, and she was too warm. She resisted the urge to fan herself. "Was anyone with you?"

"I was alone in the sense that I had no companions, but the corridor was occupied."

There was a slight hum as the air scrubbers came on. The gentle circulation of the air took the edge off of the stuffiness. "Were any of the people around you unfamiliar?"

"I recognized everyone by face and knew most by name, though I had never socialized or worked with any of them."

He was outwardly calm. Inwardly there was a roil of emotions with embarrassment as the top note. His emotional radiation was less muted than was usual for a Vulcan. Usually, she could sense their emotional reactions, much to their displeasure, but those reactions were subtle, sometimes barely perceptible. Taurik's emotions were closer to the surface than normal. "What precisely did you--" Feel? No, that was a far too loaded word, under the circumstances. "--experience?"

"A sensation of...fear."

Troi leaned back slightly, giving him as much physical space as possible. "Can you describe the physical sensations?"

"I became tense. I clenched my hands involuntarily. My rate of respiration increased. I felt cold." He looked away, a wave of shame hitting him. She forced herself not to say any of the things that sprung first to her mind. None of her reassurances would be welcome.

"How long did it last?"

"Twenty-two minutes passed between the time it started in the corridor and when the sensations lessened to the point that I once again was in control of myself." He looked around the room, eyes finally coming to rest on a new painting that she had put up recently. It was a landscape, richly colored, with dramatic fauna dominating the foreground while tall mountain peaks stretched off into the distance in the background.

"What techniques did you use to calm yourself?"

"I tried the ashu-mara and parat breathing patterns, and a sharen'vri meditation. All were useful in their way, but none entirely effective. I was able to return to my quarters without drawing attention to myself. Being alone...helped, though it still took some time for the sensations to ebb."

Deanna made note on her PADD to look up both the breathing patterns and the meditation. "How many times has this occurred?"

"Since the first occurrence, it has happened two times more."

Deanna had Beverly's report. Taurik was, as far as medical science could determine, completely healthy. Hormones, neurotransmitters, and brainwave activity were normal. His microbiome was healthy, and there were no structural brain abnormalities. "When did you see Doctor Crusher?"

"After the second instance. She said that consulting you would be wise. I came to agree with her assessment." A very slight untruth that. No, not an untruth, but a partial truth. Combined as it was with a feeling of fondness, Deanna suspected his wife or someone else close to him had had something to do with bringing him around to agreeing with the assessment.

A Vulcan patient with an emotional disorder was always a challenge. The problem, aside from the risk that their condition would be exacerbated by shame, was that all of the first line treatments for mood disorders--cognitive behavioral therapies, awareness and mindfulness, biofeedback-guided meditation--were things that Vulcans practiced from childhood. In practice, this meant that they rarely came in with emotional problems, but when they did, they were neither simple nor easily treated.

Deanna folded her hands in her lap and regarded him. He returned her gaze steadily. She liked Taurik, what little she knew of him. He was smart, and what was more he could think on his feet. Quick thinking had earned him his promotion when he'd saved the lives of three people during an away mission. A few months ago, he had taken an extended leave of absence, and come back accompanied by his new wife, much to the confusion of his colleagues who were unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of Vulcan biology. 

"Have you had any problems with meditation recently?"

There was a slight stiffening of his shoulders, so subtle that she would have missed it if she hadn't been paying close attention to his body language. "The quantity of my meditative exercises has remained the same, though I believe their quality has decreased somewhat. I find myself...distracted at times."

"Any other trouble with your emotional regulation? Emotions other than fear? Anger? Sadness?"

He said nothing, and his emotional radiation became clouded.

"If I'm going to help you, I need the entire truth," Denna said gently. "And shielding your mind from me blocks me from using one of my primary diagnostic tools."

The static in his mind cleared. "There have been some abnormalities of late."

"Such as?"

He stared at her. She stared right back. You couldn't out awkward silence a Vulcan, but you also couldn't rush them into speaking. While she was waiting, she looked him over again. Taurik was in his uniform, and appropriately groomed. His nails weren't just trimmed, but carefully shaped and possibly even lightly polished. Mr. Mott did nails as well as hair, but Vulcan social mores being what they were, she doubted very much he'd let a stranger touch his hands like that, so he had probably taken the time do tend his hands himself. There was a scuff on his left boot. It was probably nothing, but she filed it away as possible evidence that his attention to detail was slipping.

"I cried last night," Taurik said finally.

Deanna kept the surprise off of her face. "Why?"

"It was like the fear. It came on suddenly, for no reason, and once it started I could not stop."

She chewed the inside of her lip, considering her next sentence carefully. "When was the last time you cried, before that?"

The wave of embarrassment that hit her was almost physically painful. "When I was very young, if you exclude my recent marriage."

"You're referring to pon farr?"

He nodded once, sharply. "But this is not _that_."

"Anything else?"

"A certain sensation of being raw and exposed. And occasional moments of anger, but they are less intense than the other--" He cleared his throat. "Experiences."

"Have you had trouble sleeping?"

"No."

"How have you been coping with the loss of your brother?"

"I grieve," he admitted. "It would be easier if I had felt him die. Then at least I would have had that sense of finality." Vorik had disappeared with the rest of his crew when his ship had disappeared in the Badlands. He was presumed dead. Ships that were lost in there didn't return. "At times I think I can still sense him at the edges of my perception, and that he must therefore be still alive, but I know that is...unlikely to be true."

"You didn't see any of the counselors after it happened. Have you talked to anyone?"

"There is nothing to talk about. He is dead. I have processed my grief privately, and must now wait for time to dull the pain."

They would come back to that. "Have you experienced any other significant life events recently, positive or negative?"

He hesitated for no more than a second, and said, "Kir'xhan is pregnant."

Deanna nodded. "How are you feeling about that?"

He raised an eyebrow but didn't object to the use of the word. "It is an acceptable circumstance." He was happy, excited, eager even. There was anxiety, such as one would expect from a first-time parent, but nothing that would account for the panic attacks or other problems he was describing.

Deanna pressed on. "You're young to be a father, aren't you?"

"It wasn't planned." 

She kept her face and voice neutral. "Oh?"

"The failure rate of our chosen method of birth control is one in sixteen thousand five hundred and eight, so the existence of this child is...improbable. But now that it does exist, both of us are eager to meet it." He was being completely truthful, not lying even to himself, as far as she could tell.

"The _Enterprise_ isn't the safest place to raise a child."

"We are well aware of the dangers. We believe that the advantages outweigh the risks." There was slight concern at the thought, but it was well controlled. 

She asked more questions, about his duties (challenging but not excessively so), his fellow officers (he genuinely respected most of them and tolerated the rest), his personal relationships (he was content with both his marriage and his friendships), and his sex life (emphatically none of her business).

Deanna glanced at the chrono. They had already gone five minutes overtime. "Well, I can't say anything jumps out at me as a potential solution. Yet." She checked her schedule on a PADD. "Let's meet again in two days at 1600 hours. In the meantime, you can continue with your duties as normal." If this kept up, she might place him on restricted duty, but for now the benefits of letting him stay at work exceeded the risks. "What I do suggest is that you take care of yourself."

"Counselor?"

"If you experience another attack, fear or crying or anything else, I want you to treat yourself gently. During, or after, whichever seems to work best, try doing something pleasant for yourself. Eat a favorite food. Play a piece of music that you like. Take a nap. Whatever seems appropriate to the circumstances. And try not to get caught up in blaming yourself. This isn't something you're doing wrong."

"It would not be logical for me to blame myself for this." 

Very true, Deanna thought, but in her experience, pointing out logic to a Vulcan was not always redundant.

Taurik continued, "I see merit in your advice. I will keep it in mind."

When he was gone, Deanna took a few minutes to review his personnel file, searching for any past events that might be pertinent. He had lived, however, an extraordinarily ordinary life, for an _Enterprise_ officer. He had never been possessed, abducted, tortured, interfaced with an alien computer, de-aged, prematurely aged, caught in a transporter accident, or subject to any of the other myriad of strange happenings that had plagued so many others. Of course he had suffered the usual traumas that were an unavoidable part of deep space exploration, but nothing that his psychological profile suggested might cause this sort of reaction.

New marriage and an unplanned baby on the way. Loss of a close family member within the last five months. Promotion and the increased responsibilities that came with that. It was a lot for anyone to handle.

"Could be a stress reaction," she murmured, but even as she said it she knew she didn't believe it. It didn't fit, not with what she knew of Vulcan psychology, and not with what she knew of Taurik specifically. For some reason, her gut was telling her she had a big problem on her hands. She really hoped it was wrong.

*

Beverly was late. It was hardly unusual--medicine wasn't a specialty that allowed for rigid adherence to a time table--but fifteen minutes late was a bit much. Usually, if there was a major crisis in sickbay, either Deanna would have heard about it by other means, or Beverly would have managed to find ten seconds to contact her and tell her that they needed to reschedule.

When Beverly finally arrived in Deanna's office, she was harried, worried, and deeply upset about something. She went straight to the replicator. "Green tea, iced, just a little sweet."

"Is everything okay?"

Beverly sat down and took a small sip of her tea. "No." She took a deep breath. "Intimate partner violence is uniquely disturbing."

Deanna sat back, slightly stunned. "On the _Enterprise_?"

"It can't happen here?" Beverly asked with a rueful twist of her lips.

"Well, of course it can happen anywhere." Deanna mentally reorganized her list of patient priorities. She had worked on cases of intimate violence before. It was a messy and ugly and generally awful. "What happened?"

"The patient came in with two broken fingers. I asked him what happened and he said it had been an accident. I pressed--the way the bones were broken suggested a deliberate attack--and, well, Vulcans can lie, but they often aren't very good at it."

"A Vulcan? Not Lieutenant Taurik?" Deanna didn't want it to be him, but it would certainly shed light on things if it were.

"Taurik? No. No, that would certainly go a long way to explaining the panic attacks, but this was Suvoth."

An intimate partner attack between two bonded Vulcans? His hands too. Deanna didn't fully understand the role of hands in Vulcan sexuality--she doubted anyone who wasn't sexually involved with a Vulcan truly did--but she knew that they played an important role in sexual and emotional expression.

"Did you get any details?"

Beverly shook her head. "Suvoth is being mulish. He said it was a personal matter. It was like pulling teeth just to get him to admit that T'Vri was the one who had done it. I asked Selar to talk to him. She'll understand the cultural complications better than I can. We're going to need your help."

"Of course."

"We don't have enough information yet, but as soon as I know more, you and Selar and I should sit down and--"

Beverly's comm badge chirped. "Selar to Doctor Crusher."

Beverly tapped her comm badge. "Go ahead."

"Doctor, you and Counselor Troi should report back to sickbay at your earliest availability. The situation with Suvoth has grown more complex."

From the emotional radiation she was getting as they walked down the corridor, Deanna half expected sickbay to be in chaos, but it was eerily calm when they walked in. Suvoth was on one biobed, absently rubbing his fingers. T'Vri was on another, being examined by Doctor Selar. Two large male nurses were trying to look busy by a computer console, but Deanna was sure they were there as additional security in case any violence occurred.

The room was tense. Suvoth was embarrassed, uncomfortable, and worried. Selar felt out of her depth. But it was T'Vri who caught Deanna's immediate attention. She was...angry. Intensely, unreasonably, overwhelmingly angry. Under the anger, there were other emotions: fear, sadness...and hunger, oddly enough. Deanna had to take a moment to calm herself before she could even consider her next step.

She looked at Suvoth. When he noticed her attention, he immediately stopped massaging his hand, but not before Deanna noticed that it was the first two fingers on his right hand that had been broken. Xenosexuality 351. Touching of the two fingers was called...el'ru'esta? Or ozh'esta? Troi couldn't remember, but she did remember that it was a gesture reserved for a bondmate. This had been an intensely intimate attack.

"Beverly, may I use your office?"

Beverly nodded, her attention on the scans that Selar was running.

Deanna lowered her voice, hopefully low enough that the Vulcans didn't hear her, and said to Beverly, "You should get security down here, discretely. She is barely in control of herself."

Beverly looked up, and nodded again.

Deanna moved to Suvoth. "Can we speak?"

"No."

Deanna said, as gently as she could, "I will make it an order if I have to."

He looked from her to T'Vri and back. "Very well."

As soon as they had gotten to the privacy of Beverly's office, Suvoth said, "She is not herself."

"I believe you," Deanna said. She stood in front of him, further away from him than she would have been with a Betazoid or a Human, and clasped her hands behind her back to show him that she had no intention of touching him . "Tell me what happened."

He stared at her for a long moment, and Deanna, both because she was still somewhat distracted by the waves of anger coming from T'Vri and because he was deliberately trying to shield his mind, had some trouble reading him. "I could sense something was amiss with her," he said at last.

"Through the bond?"

"Yes, but also from simple observation. She was...on edge, I believe, is how it is often described." He rubbed his hands together in a nervous gesture. That was not a good sign.

"This is unusual for her?"

"Very." There was an edge of desperation in him. It was important to him that Deanna believe him.

"You and your wife are very close."

She sensed fondness. "We have known each other since before either of us could walk. She was my sister before she was my wife."

Deanna blinked. There were plenty of places where that wasn't taboo, but she hadn't thought Vulcan was one of them.

"My milk sister," he clarified, seeing her confusion. "Our mothers were close friends. We nursed at the same breasts as infants."

Deanna nodded, and gave him a small smile of encouragement, trying to show him that she didn't want to judge T'Vri harshly. "So she was your childhood bondmate?"

"Yes. She is, has always been, peaceful. Gentle. Calm. This...anger, this rage. It is entirely unlike her."

"Tell me how your fingers were broken."

He looked away for a moment. Deanna sensed embarrassment, hurt. "As I said, I had sensed something was wrong. I returned to our quarters this afternoon and found her working at the computer. I had decided that I would speak to her about the...emotions I was sensing from her. She did not notice me when I came in, or when I said her name, so I touched her shoulder, to get her attention. She...she grabbed my hand, twisted my fingers back. There is a pressure point here--" He gestured to a spot between his first two fingers. "If one knows how to manipulate it, the pain is intense."

T'Vri was a security officer, trained under Worf. She would know how to manipulate it.

"I fell to my knees. My surprise and pain were such that I could not speak. She said--" He stopped.

Deanna waited, but when he did not seem inclined to go further, she pressed. "What did she say?"

"She said, 'Do not touch me ever again.'"

"I'm so sorry," Deanna said softly. Vulcans needed touch. They didn't need quite as much as most humanoids, but they couldn't be psychologically healthy without it. For reasons both cultural and biological, there were a limited number of people that they were able to comfortably touch and be touched by, and to have the person who, above all, met that need suddenly reject them...

"That is when she broke my fingers," he said with a very deliberate, forced calm.

"And you came straight to sickbay?"

"T'Vri suggested that I remove myself from the room. I thought it wise to do as she said."

"But you didn't want to tell anyone what had happened. Why?"

"It was a personal matter, between the two of us. And I did not wish to expose T'Vri to censure."

Deanna decided not to point out the myriad of flaws in his logic. He had just been subject to a terrible attack from the person he trusted most. The last thing he needed was to be criticized for how he had tried to handle it.

"How did T'Vri come to be in sickbay?"

"She came of her own accord. She had sufficiently regained control of herself to recognize that something was wrong, and she sought treatment."

"Do not touch me!"

Deanna went to the door of the office. T'Vri had shoved one of the nurses away from her, and looked ready to attack anyone who came near her. Suvoth was next to Deanna, and she could sense his anxiety, but also his relief. Relieved to learn that it was not just his touch that was unacceptable?

"T'Vri!" Deanna called. "It's going to be okay. No one here is going to touch you without your permission."

T'Vri turned to look at her, and the anger and fear that was coming from her was blinding. Deanna could barely sense anyone else in the room.

"Try to relax," Deanna said gently. Security arrived then. Deanna waved them back. "I know you're hurting."

T'Vri shook her head as if to clear it. Her hands were clenched at her sides.

"Have a seat, please," Deanna said. T'Vri backed up against the biobed, but did not sit.

Deanna was starting to get nauseous from the churn of powerful negative emotions. T'Vri's rage, fueled by an undercurrent of terror, was the worst of it, but next to her Suvoth was both scared for his wife and mortified that the situation had become so public. The security officers were more tense than usual. T'Vri was one of their own. And one of the two guards was a Betazoid. He was projecting his anxiety, and not quietly.

Deanna swallowed and focused on Beverly. She was alert, focused, and while not calm, certainly more calming to Deanna's mind than anyone else in the room.

"What happened?" Deanna asked.

"Doctor Crusher told me to give her a sedative," the nurse who had been attacked said. "She, T'Vri I mean, agreed to the sedative, but when I went to inject her, she shoved me away."

"T'Vri is the sedative still acceptable to you?"

"Yes. Yes, please," she said, and Deanna felt another surge of anxiety from Suvoth, who had only begun to calm himself. A Vulcan who felt so completely overwhelmed by her emotions that she was prepared to accept chemical help in getting them under control was a Vulcan in a very bad place indeed.

"If we toss you the hypo, will you inject yourself?"

She nodded, and Deanna looked at Beverly.

"Sit down first," Beverly said. "I'm giving you something that will take your legs out from under you."

T'Vri looked around the room and sat down. What Deanna sensed from her was something akin to the emotional radiation of a cornered animal. "Please," she said quietly.

Beverly nodded to the nurse, who tossed over the hypo. T'Vri fumbled with it, and injected herself in the forearm. She began to slump almost immediately. The sedative took effect quickly, and within thirty seconds, she had laid back on the biobed, eyes half closed.

"Aduna," she said softly.

"I am here," Suvoth said, stepping closer.

"Ni'droi'ik nar-tor, aduna." The translator in Deanna's ear switched on, supplying, _I ask forgiveness, my spouse._

Suvoth stepped closer. "Thrap-fam'es nufau." _You are forgiven._

"Ri esta-tor t'nash-ve." _Do not touch me._

"Ring nash-ve." _I won't._

"Hafau k'nash-ve?" _Stay with me?_

"Always," Suvoth said. He stopped a meter from the biobed and remained still.

"Deanna," Beverly said, touching her arm. "You're shaking."

Deanna looked at her. With T'Vri sedated and Suvoth now tightly in control of his emotions, the intensity of the room had dialed back down to a manageable level. "I should sit down," Deanna said.

Beverly took her back to her office and led her to a chair, hovering closely.

"I might throw up on you," Deanna warned.

"It would hardly be the first time I've been vomited on. Very unlikely to be the last too." She shrugged. "Professional hazard."

Deanna managed a shaky smile. She had never vomited from intense emotional feedback, but the overwhelming nature of what had just transpired, combined with the strange flavor of Vulcan minds, was making her stomach churn. After a few minutes, her stomach settled, and Beverly put a cup of hot mint tea in her hands. "Feel better?"

"Yes, thank you." Deanna leaned back in her chair and inhaled the smell of the tea.

"T'Vri should sleep for at least six hours," Beverly said. "I doubt Suvoth will leave her side after she asked him to stay."

Deanna hummed thoughtfully and sipped her tea. "Why the strong aversion to touch?"

Beverly shook her head and picked up a PADD. "There's nothing wrong with her as far as I can tell."

"My second mystery of the week," Deanna said. "My second mystery involving a Vulcan."

"Do you think they're related?"

"Possibly. Taurik is primarily having intermittent panic attacks. There was a lot of fear buried under T'Vri's anger, but it didn't feel anything like a panic attack to me, and it seems like what she's experiencing is fairly constant. They could be different manifestations of the same underlying issue, but they could also be completely unrelated. I'll go through Taurik's file again and compare it to T'Vri's. Maybe something will jump out."

*

 

Will was radiating annoyance as he called out for Deanna to enter his office, but both his expression and his emotional radiation softened when he saw that it was her.

"Good morning," she said, taking a seat across from his desk.

"Is it still morning?" He pushed a PADD across his desk, as though he could no longer bear to look at it. "I feel like I've been at this for hours." He gave her a hopeful look. "Please tell me you've got a crisis for me so that I have an excuse to stop working on crew schedules." He was only half joking.

"I'm afraid I might have one," she said, and he frowned, humor leaving him as he took in her serious expression. "The truth is I'm not sure yet, and I need your opinion on whether or not I should take something to Captain Picard."

He leaned back in his chair, gesturing for her to continue.

Deanna crossed her legs and regarded him thoughtfully. Eight years ago, she wouldn't have thought they could be this comfortable with each other, but they had forged a solid friendship. There was no awkwardness from him, no uncomfortable undercurrent to the conversation. Will was calm, focused on her, and ready to help. Deanna relaxed under his open gaze.

"I have two Vulcans, both suffering from some sort of as-yet unidentified emotional disorder. One is suffering, but functional. The other is, by her own request, heavily sedated and confined to quarters." Will's eyebrows rose at that. "Both have no history of mental illness. One has several stressors in his life right now. The other appears to have no major stress factors. There's nothing that I can find to connect the two problems. The only reason I even think they might be related is that they're both Vulcans, suffering from emotional disorders that started around the same time."

"And?"

"And when I'm around them they both have the same, ah, feel." Will gave her a questioning look and she shrugged, unable to explain it to a non-empath.

Will stroked his beard. "Are any other Vulcans having trouble? Or anyone at all for that matter, Vulcan or not?"

Deanna shook her head. "None who have sought help with me or the other counselors. None have been seen by sickbay. But that doesn't necessarily mean that no one else is having problems. Many people would struggle to come forward with something like this, and, well, Vulcans."

Will gave her a little half-smile of understanding and said, "Computer, how many Vulcan crew members on this ship?"

"There are twelve Vulcan crew members aboard the _Enterprise_."

"Have any of them missed a duty shift in the last...three weeks?"

"Two Vulcan crew members have missed a duty shift during that time period. Lieutenant Commander T'Ul missed her assigned duty shift six days ago--"

"I know about that. She was having ankle surgery," Deanna said. She had reviewed the recent medical records of the Vulcan crew members earlier.

"And Ensign Navin missed his assigned duty shift yesterday."

Deanna raised an eyebrow. "That one I didn't know about."

"What was the reason given for Ensign Navin's missed shift?" Will asked. He picked up a decorative rock from his desk and tossed it from hand to hand.

"Ensign Navin arranged for Ensign Larash to cover his shift. No reason was given."

"Interesting," Will said. "Also against regulations."

Officially, every officer was required to work their duty shift as scheduled unless they prearranged a change with their superior officer. Unofficially, except on the bridge and in a few other critical departments where discipline and security were paramount, as long as there was a warm body doing the work, no one was going to say anything. Swapped shifts were common enough, and only became an issue if it interfered in the functioning of the department. But Will was right, it was technically against regulations.

"Vulcans don't like breaking the rules," Will continued, meditatively turning the rock over in his hands.

"Everyone is an individual, and it's always a mistake to rigidly apply species-wide tendencies to individuals," Deanna said, as much as a reminder for herself as for him. "But in general their psychology is more rule-abiding than not." If he'd broke a regulation, even one that no one cared about very much, he probably had a compelling reason. "I'll ask him about it."

He nodded. "As far as the Captain goes, I think alerting him can wait until we have something more concrete. Let me know how your meeting with Navin goes. Based on that, I'll decide if we need to tell him. If we do, I'll include you in my meeting with him tomorrow."

"Thank you, Will."

"Don't thank me yet," Will said. "You still have to figure out how to approach a Vulcan to ask him if he's having emotional problems."

Deanna winced. He had a point.


	2. Chapter 2

Captain Picard kindly gave her free reign during her duty shift unless she had a specific assignment or he wanted her on the bridge, and she often used it to wander into Ten Forward and other social areas of the ship, and try to get a feel for the mood of the crew. She hadn't gone so far as to manufacture a casual meeting with Ensign Navin, but she had timed her wanderings for an hour when the ensign was both off duty and unlikely to be asleep and hoped for a fortunate encounter. Ten Forward was quiet when she walked in. It was the early in the alpha shift, and the clientele was tilted toward civilians, most of whom were reading or talking quietly. A pair of waiters were playing cards in the corner. One began to rise when he saw her, but Deanna shook her head and he sat back down and returned to the game.

When she spied Navin seated alone at a table reading a book, she smiled to herself.

She approached with a deliberately heavy step. "Ensign Navin."

Navin looked up from his book, tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment. "Counselor."

"May I sit down?" 

"Yes."

Navin was nearly 80--Starfleet was his second career--but he had soft, boyish features and a slight build. She had to remind herself that he wasn't a child, but rather an adult several decades her senior, and not likely to appreciate anything he perceived as patronizing.

"I need to ask you something, and I want to preface it by saying that you aren't in any sort of trouble. I'm investigating something, I'm not prepared to say what yet."

He raised an eyebrow and placed a marker in his book, closing it. He folded his hands on the table in front of him. He'd bitten his left thumbnail ragged, she noticed. "Very well."

"Why did you skip your duty shift earlier this week?"

Navin tensed. It was subtle, but she saw the way his shoulders went up slightly and his fingers flexed against the table. "I had a digestive issue. It was nothing serious enough to warrant a visit to sickbay, but it seemed wise to stay close to my personal facilities."

He was embarrassed. That was odd. Vulcans didn't generally get embarrassed by bodily functions. Sex, yes, but that was because of the emotionality and intimacy of the act, not the physical aspects of it.

Deanna leaned forward, realized her mistake, and got out of his personal space as quickly as she could without being conspicuous. "I sense there is more to it than you're not telling me." He looked away for a moment, and Deanna said, "I don't want to pry, but this may be important."

His jaw clenched and unclenched. "I ate too much."

"I'm sorry?"

"The night before my missed shift, I ate too much. I was in my quarters and I was hungry, so I ordered cold plomeek salad. After I ate it, I was still hungry, so I ordered another one. And then another. I ate myself sick." He made a noise that might have been a sigh. "It was completely illogical. I do not know why I did it.

She didn't know what she had been expecting, but that wasn't it. "Did you feel hungry?"

Navin shook his head. "It was very strange. Physically, I felt full, but I had a powerful craving, a need to keep eating."

Someone was rearranging glassware behind the bar. Across the room, a human laughed softly. The doors hissed, and Bri ul-Lansel, the early child development specialist who had recently joined the crew, walked in and gave Deanna a greeting gesture, all four arms waving happily. Deanna nodded politely, but tried not to project any invitation in her manner. Bri seemed to get the message, and didn't approach them.

"Has anything like this every happened to you before?" Deanna asked.

"No."

"Has it happened since?"

"Not in the same way. I have experienced hunger not based on physical need twice since then, but I have managed to restrain myself both times." He cleared his throat. "Though I confess it has proved difficult." There was a plate of food on the table in front of him, half-eaten. He looked at it, and Deanna sensed a surge of primal need from him. His hand went to his mouth and he began to chew at his thumbnail again, then he noticed her watching him and there was embarrassment. He dropped his hand, moved in a way that seemed unconscious toward the food, then jerked his hand back and ended up clenching the edge of the table.

His emotional radiation had the same feel as Taurik and T'Vri and Suvoth. Everything was too close to the surface, too volatile.

"Testing your self-control?" Deanna asked, nodding to the food.

"Yes," he said, his voice a low whisper.

That seemed unnecessarily cruel, Deanna thought, but she decided not to bring it up yet. Instead, she lowered her voice even further and asked, "Have you experienced any other problems with regulating your emotions recently?" 

Navin met her eyes, and Deanna sensed shame and embarrassment. "Yesterday, someone was not looking at where they were going and ran into me in the corridor. I became unreasonably upset. I managed to control myself, but only just." His folded his hands carefully on the table. "I somehow fit into your investigation."

"You do." Deanna stood up. She couldn't continue this conversation in a public place. There were too many personal questions she needed to ask him. "We'll need to discuss this further, but not here or now. I'm going to schedule something." 

He nodded again, resigned. 

Two might have been coincidence. Three edged the conclusion toward shared cause. Her gut twisted again. It was time she listened to it.

*

 

Two more people approached her in the next twelve hours. Despite her efforts to keep things quiet out of respect for the privacy of the affected, the _Enterprise_ rumor mill had begun working overtime. While the Vulcans might not have liked having their personal affairs discussed over glasses of synthale in Ten Forward, it made it easier for them to talk about what had been happening. There was less cultural baggage to overcome in admitting that you were also subject to the phenomena that was affecting your colleagues than in coming forward and telling someone that you had cried in bed for an hour the previous night for no reason at all.

It was not an emergency situation. With the exception of T'Vri, and Navin's one skipped shift, everyone affected was still able to carry out their duties. Even if that changed, and every Vulcan on the ship was disabled, they would only have been down twelve crew members, not enough to cause any threat to the ship. But Captain Picard was not one to view lightly the wellbeing of any member of his crew, and as soon as Will and Deanna informed him of the situation, he pulled the two of them, as well as Beverly and Selar, into a meeting to address the situation.

"When did this start?" Picard asked.

Troi said, "As nearly as we can figure out, the first symptoms appeared eleven days ago. Nearly all of the Vulcans are affected to some extent or another, but severity and the manifestation of symptoms is highly individual."

Picard looked at Selar. "Doctor, I know that Vulcans are not always forthcoming about conditions which affect their ability to regulate their emotions. I respect the privacy mores of your culture, but in this case, if you know of anything, I believe that the need to understand what is happening must be deemed more important. 'The Silences do not take priority over suffering.'"

Deanna couldn't place the quote, but she suspected that Picard may have acquired it from his meld with Sarek. Selar was surprised to hear him say it.

Selar inclined her head in agreement. "You are correct. However, I know of no condition known to Vulcan medical science which can fully explain the observed phenomena. I have sent a message to a contact that I have at the hospital in Shi'kahr. A Vulcan doctor may have knowledge that I lack."

Will was surprised. "I thought we were talking to a Vulcan doctor."

"I spoke without proper clarity. I apologize. I should have said a Vulcan healer. On Vulcan, the terms are synonymous, but there is some distinction. I lack the mental aptitude for healer's training, which involves a great deal of intensive telepathic conditioning. On Vulcan I would be considered a medic. I can treat the body, but not the mind." Selar aspect was calm and unconcerned, but Deanna could feel how much it hurt her to lack that skill. It frustrated her as well, probably because she thought that a Vulcan healer would have been more useful in this situation. Perhaps one might have been, but Deanna was happy to have the resource they did in Selar.

"In any case," Selar continued, "my colleague confirmed that no known condition presents in this way."

"Bendii syndrome can cause emotions to be projected from one person to another," Beverly said. She was seated next to Deanna. Selar and Will were across from them, and the Captain was standing with his hands clasped on the back of his usual chair. Will was jiggling his leg under the table, and Selar was more annoyed by it than she should have been.

"Yes, but most Vulcans are able to resist those projected emotions," Selar said in reply. She had either neglected to cut her hair recently or she was growing it out. It curled against her neck.

"Could there be a related condition that Vulcans can't resist?" Will asked.

"It is possible, however such a thing has never been seen before. We are quite good at--" She hesitated. Deanna sensed that Picard wanted to press her and caught his eye, shaking her head slightly. Silence might not have taken priority over suffering, but neither was it easy to overcome a lifetime of silence about certain things. She needed to come to it on her own.

Finally, Selar continued, "It is an open secret that Vulcans are not, as we like to project ourselves, devoid of any emotion. Indeed, if we do not take care to master our emotions, they can be...overwhelming, both to us and to others. That is why it is so necessary that we keep them under careful control. Most people also know that Vulcans do not generally like to be touched. Many people know that this is because we are telepaths, and will pick up both the emotions and thoughts of the one who touched us. Fewer people are aware that we also pick up these thoughts and emotions by simple proximity. We are not as powerful in our telepathy as, for example, Betazoids, not in this way, but we are...aware of the people around us. And we read other Vulcans better than members of other species.

"Unlike most tepathic species, which tend toward openness and a lack of privacy taboos, we are also an intensely private race. To balance these two things, we have, both by birth and by training, the ability to block out the thoughts and, yes, emotions of other Vulcans, and to block them from reading our minds as well. In most adults, this ability is so ingrained and habitual that we are not even aware that we are doing it. If, however, someone is projecting their emotions with unusual force, such as in the case of Bendii Syndrome, it is a relatively small thing for us to consciously increase this mental shielding."

Selar paused for a moment, considering, then continued, "There are a number of conditions which might cause a single Vulcan to be unable to regulate their emotions. There are none known that could cause this level of...emotional dysregulation among a population of healthy adult Vulcans, all of whom have very likely undergone additional mental training in anticipation of serving among non-Vulcans."

"It is reasonable to assume, then, we are dealing with an outside force which is affecting the mental health of the Vulcans aboard this ship," Picard said.

Selar nodded. "That would be my conclusion, yes."

"A pathogen?" Will asked.

"None that I've been able to detect," Beverly said, frustration coming to the forefront of her emotions. "I've run tests on all of the affected Vulcans, and a random selection of non-Vulcans who work closely with the affected Vulcans, just to be certain that there isn't something present in the non-Vulcans that's affecting the Vulcans. Nothing. And I have been thorough."

"I'm sure you have, Doctor," Picard said. He walked to the window of the briefing room, his hands clasped behind his back. "We arrived in this system approximately twelve days ago. Are there any nearby spatial phenomena which might account for this?"

Beverly made a gesture of uncertainty. "After all these years on the _Enterprise_ , I'm not inclined to discount the possibility of anything. Let's just say that it seems unlikely."

"I'll have Data and Geordi review all of our sensor logs for the last month, and see if anything jumps out at them," Will said.

"Very well," Picard said. "Until we have reason not to, we will continue with our current assignment without change." The _Enterprise_ was charting a largely barren sector by the edge of the galaxy on its way to a more interesting sector that held the promise of advanced life.

Picard turned back to look at Deanna. "Counselor, you will no doubt continue to offer your expertise in supporting the affected crew members. I am sure this is very difficult for them." He understood better than most, Deanna realized, sensing from him a vicarious embarrassment. A residual of his meld with Sarek, or a reflection of his own reserved, fiercely private nature? Likely both. "You may assure them that this matter is not taken lightly, and we will continue to investigate until the cause is found."

"Thank you, Captain."

After the meeting was dismissed, Deanna caught up with Selar in the corridor. "I would like to ask you a personal question."

Selar's step faltered, but she quickly recovered. "You may."

"I'm not asking to satisfy my own curiosity. Given what's happening, I'm trying to better understand the nuances of Vulcan telepathy, in the hopes that it will lead to a solution. That said, if I cross a line, please tell me."

Selar nodded.

"You said that you don't have the mental aptitude for healer's training. I'm curious exactly what you mean by that."

"Simply that my innate telepathic abilities are not sufficiently robust to allow me to be successful in the training. Sending me to Gol for healer's training would be setting me up to fail. It would not be logical to waste resources on someone who cannot hope to succeed."

Deanna hoped she wasn't quoting something she had been told to her face, though knowing Vulcan bluntness, it was very possible she was. "Selar, I looked at the psi scores of every Vulcan on the ship, yours included. Your psi score is nothing extraordinary, but it's perfectly respectable, higher than many of the other Vulcans on the ship. How much innate ability does a Vulcan healer need to have?"

They turned the corner and stopped in front of the turbolift. "In general, they test in the top twenty-five percent of the population, though there are exceptions. But you are looking, I believe, at the Elion Standard Score?" Deanna nodded. "We use different tests on Vulcan. When first filtering applications for healer's training, they most often look at the Nuri score. It has proved the most accurate measure of the likelihood of success at healer's training."

"I've never even heard of that," Deanna admitted.

"It is only used on Vulcan. Nuri simply means youth. It is the score given to children in advance of--" She paused. "I am telling you these things because I believe there is a logical reason for you to know them. However, they are not often discussed with outsiders."

In other words, Deanna thought, don't use this conversation as an anecdote at the next boring diplomatic reception you attend. "I understand."

Selar nodded, satisfied, and continued, "The Nuri score is given to children in advance of their betrothal. It is one way in which we prevent the bonding of incompatible minds."

Deanna paused as a two crew members got off of the lift. It was crowded, and headed in the wrong direction, and so continued on without them. When the two crew members had walked away, she asked, "How much does it vary from the Elion?"

"It can vary a great deal. As you say, on the Elion I appear a somewhat gifted telepath. On the Nuri, my weaknesses are clear."

Inexcusable cultural blindness. The Elion was a Betazoid test. Deanna had never been tested on any other. It translated well to other species, so it was widely used throughout the Federation, but of course other species had their own metrics. "Would it be possible to access these scores? Would I be breaking a taboo to ask people their scores?"

Selar tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "They are not always included in a Starfleet personnel file, but they are sure to be on record with the Clan office. It would be more in keeping with cultural practices for you to go to the Clan office to request the scores, rather than asking individuals. I will request them for you. It wouldn't be efficient, or kind for that matter, to ask an off-worlder to navigate Clan bureaucracy."

Deanna smiled in spite of herself. "Thank you."

"I wish to see this situation rectified." Selar reached over and pressed the call button for the lift. "I offer any assistance that I may give toward that end."

Deanna looked her over. Other than the longer than usual hair, which could easily have been deliberate, she didn't show any signs of being distracted. Her emotions were raw, like the others, but less so than most. "Selar, how are you?"

The lift came and they both stepped on. Fortunately, it was empty. "I have not been as severely affected as some. However, I admit that there are some irregularities."

"Any idea of what might be affecting you?"

"No."

Deanna sighed and rubbed at her eyes. "Thank you for your help."

Selar gave her an oddly intense look. "Thank you, Counselor. You have thus far been supremely respectful in your investigation. More so than some might be. It is not unappreciated."

Deanna smiled, surprised and pleased by the compliment.

*

 

Suvoth came to the door when Deanna rang the chime. He greeted her with a nod and stepped aside to allow her entrance.

"How are you?" Deanna asked as the doors slid shut behind her.

"My condition is...not optimal." That was one way to put it, Deanna thought, looking him over. He was under a great deal of stress and he was not managing it well. She couldn't just sense how terrible he felt, she could see it. He looked drawn, pale, and utterly exhausted. Troi wondered how much of that was his own reaction to the situation, how much was shared strain from the telepathic bond he had with his wife, and how much could be put down to the as-yet unidentified ailment that was affecting all of the Vulcans.

Her clinical eye noted that he was also clean, and neatly dressed and groomed. He was holding himself erect despite his exhaustion, and his affect was normal. He was suffering, but managing. Troi pressed her lips together. It was a wonder he was still functional. She wanted to offer him something--sympathy or a hand on the arm or a chocolate soda, _something_ \--but none of that would bring him comfort. It would result in the opposite, in fact.

"You are here to see T'Vri," Suvoth said. When she nodded, he hesitated, then said, "Come." He led her back toward their bedroom.

Vulcan privacy mores being what they were, it was entirely possible that no one except T'Vri and Suvoth had been in this room since the two of them had taken possession of their quarters, and Deanna could sense discomfort from Suvoth. He didn't like having her in their private space, no matter what the reason might be. She had no idea how she was supposed to react to the violation, so she decided not to react to it at all. 

The room was neat and clean, she noted, and the climate controls were set to Vulcan normal.

T'Vri was propped up against several pillows. She was glassy-eyed, wearing both a cortical monitor and a wrist monitor. It had been a calculated risk allowing T'Vri to go back to her quarters. She was on powerful sedatives, and that alone had made both Deanna and Beverly hesitate, even leaving aside the possibility that she might become violent despite the medication. In the end, sending her back had been the better choice. The sedatives were affecting her ability to shield her mind from unwanted thoughts and emotions. Leaving her in sickbay would have meant far more exposure to strange minds, hardly the sort of thing to help someone who was already unstable.

Suvoth had...pleaded was too emotional a word, but there had been an edge of desperation in him as he had laid out his reasons why T'Vri should be sent back to their quarters. He had volunteered to care for her, logically pointing out that, were it necessary, his touch would be the least offensive.

"She broke your fingers last time you touched her," Troi had felt compelled to mention.

"Had it been anyone else at that moment, I do not doubt she would have killed them," Suvoth had responded calmly.

The cortical monitor and the wrist monitor were safeguards. If her life signs dipped or became erratic, they would do a site-to-site transport and send her straight to sickbay. Suvoth also had a panic button on his person, just in case.

T'Vri blinked slowly and, with effort, focused her attention on Deanna.

"Counselor."

Deanna stood as from the bed as she could manage in the small room. She kept her bearing erect and her manner formal. "How are you?"

Something between a smile and a grimace flickered across her face. Was the sedative affecting her ability to control her emotions, or was this more of the emotional dysregulation disorder? "Distinctly unwell."

"Are you still angry?"

"Very. As you no doubt can sense."

"I can sense it, but I find having people articulate their emotions for me can be helpful. Can you try to pinpoint for me..." Deanna paused. She had been puzzling over how to phrase this the entire way over, but there seemed to be no way to really capture what she wanted to ask. "Is there anything that you are angry about?"

"No."

"Nothing? Your anger isn't directed at anything or anyone, even something seemingly foolish?"

"I am angry with myself, for having hurt my husband." Her gaze went to Suvoth, who was standing off to the side. There was something very intimate, very personal, in the look at they shared, and Deanna felt like a voyeur. T'Vri looked back at Deanna. "This anger, however, is something which, were I able to think clearly, I would have processed and moved past long ago. The anger which caused me to lash out, the anger which is so all-consuming, is different. It comes from a different place."

 _Yes, but what place?_ Deanna thought. "Does it feel like something outside of you?"

"Yes. But...not entirely. It is...it is so hard to describe. I cannot understand it myself, much less explain it to another."

There was an incense diffuser in the corner. The room smelled spicy-sweet, like _rajas_ and vanilla.

"Is it getting weaker, or stronger?"

"I cannot answer that," T'Vri said. "The medication...it makes it difficult to focus. And it seems so all-encompassing."

"It is getting stronger," Suvoth said. Both Troi and T'Vri looked at him. "I speak for myself, not my wife. You said that one of the other affected people was experiencing hunger?" Troi nodded. "I too have begun to experience that. There is a gnawing hunger--no, deeper than that, it is an emptiness. I can eat, but it does no good. It...hurts."

"Yes," T'Vri said softly. "It hurts. Touching hurts. I am angry because it hurts."

"What hurts?" Deanna asked, keeping her voice calm.

"I do not know," Suvoth said. T'Vri shook her head.

Deanna offered up her best reassuring smile, and hoped that neither of them could sense how much she just wanted to scream.

"Do you have children?" she asked, mostly to give them a break from talking about their situation.

Suvoth answered. "We have one son." He gestured to a painting on the wall. It was an image of a boy, about ten, richly colored and somewhat stylized.

Deanna examined the painting. "How old is he now?"

"Twenty four. He lives on Vulcan, and is studying textile design. He made us the pillows on the bed." Deanna didn't dare move closer to examine them, but where she was standing she could see that they were embroidered in jewel tones. To her untrained eye, they looked very well done.

"Was he raised in space?" Deanna asked.

"Primarily," Suvoth said. "We took two years off from Starfleet during his early childhood so that he could spend a critical period of his development among his relatives, but otherwise his childhood was spent on starships and space stations. We were concerned at times about the somewhat transient manner of life, but it appears to have done him no harm."

"One of my Vulcan patients is pregnant. She and her husband might appreciate hearing your experience." She stopped herself from saying the name. She wasn't sure how public the pregnancy was.

"Kir'xhan," T'Vri said, sitting up slightly.

"You know?"

"Yes. She came to me before she was even sure of her condition, to ask counsel. We are--" T'Vri leaned back into the pillows, the slight effort of sitting straighter seemingly too much for her. "We are clan kin."

"You're related?" That hadn't come up before.

T'Vri shook her head and closed her eyes. Suvoth said, "Clan kin simply means they belong to the same clan. It does not necessarily denote actual kinship, only certain shared rights and responsibilities toward one other. My wife and Kir'xhan are both of Tre'gar."

"I promised to make myself available to her. Anything she needed," T'Vri said in a whisper. "It seems I will not be able to fulfill that promise."

"You will," Deanna said.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," T'Vri said. She reached a hand toward her husband, then pulled it back, then reached out again before finally letting her hand fall to her stomach.

"She wants my touch, but if I touch her, she grows extremely agitated," Suvoth said. His voice was steady and his face was expressionless, but Deanna could sense the helpless despair in him.

Needing touch they couldn't stand. Craving food they didn't want. Afraid. Hurting.

Deanna excused herself, aware that she had nothing more to offer them and that her presence was probably more a trial than a comfort. She was only a few meters down the corridor when her comm badge chirped.

"This is Kir'xhan. I need to speak to Counselor Troi."

Kir'xhan, Taurik's wife. She was civilian, new to the ship, and unfamiliar with comm protocol.

"Go ahead."

"Counselor, I request that you come to our quarters. We are on deck--"

"I know where you are," Deanna said. "Give me five minutes. Troi out."


	3. Chapter 3

Taurik and Kir'xhan were quartered on the same deck as T'Vri and Suvoth, and she made it to their quarters in less than five minutes. Kir'xhan ushered her in and took her to the bathroom, where Taurik was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, curled in on himself. He looked up when she entered, and for a moment his face displayed such naked fear and anguish and humiliation that Deanna's heart broke for him.

"I said I didn't want her."

"I am concerned for your safety," Kir'xhan said. Absently, Deanna noticed that her emotional radiation was muted, but she didn't seem to be shielding. There was anxiety and empathy, but it was well-controlled. She felt...like a Vulcan normally would in a situation like this. Interesting, but Deanna didn't have time to analyze that now.

Deanna knelt on the floor next to him. He'd been sick, and he hadn't entirely made the sink. It looked like someone had made an attempt to clean it up, but they'd missed some.

She swallowed. He was radiating intense fear, and she had to take a few breaths to relax herself before she spoke. She needed to be entirely calm here. Any anxiety that she displayed was only going to feed into his.

"How long has this been going on?" she asked, keeping her voice quiet.

"Hours," he said.

"Forty eight minutes," Kir'xhan corrected.

"I'm sure it feels like hours," Deanna said quickly, addressing Taurik. "Something like this can throw off your time sense pretty badly."

He began to slam his head back against the wall. Deanna winced and reached out instinctually to get his attention. He gasped at her touch and pulled away.

"Sorry," she said.

"He keeps trying to harm himself," Kir'xhan said.

Taurik shook his head. Deanna said, "You aren't trying to hurt yourself. You just want something else to focus on."

"Yes." She sensed relief at being understood.

She settled down and sat cross-legged on the floor, trying to get comfortable. She had a feeling she might be here for a while. "Kir'xhan, go to the replicator and get a bowl of ice."

Kir'xhan gave her an odd look, but obeyed. While she was gone, Deanna considered her next step. She didn't have a protocol for talking a Vulcan through a panic attack because they weren't supposed to have them. Get him talking about something else, she decided. Never underestimate the power of distraction.

"How are things in Engineering?" she asked. "Geordi seems excited about the new replicator program."

He frowned at her, seeming to know what she was doing, and deciding if he was willing to go along with it. Finally, he said, "That is all computer work. I am a subspace engineer, not a computer technician." There was a hint of disdain in his voice. Deanna suspected that same hint would have been there if she'd asked the computer engineers about the subspace crew.

Kir'xhan returned with the ice. Deanna put the bowl on the floor next to him. "Try this. All of the pain with none of the risk of inter-cranial bleeding."

He picked up and ice cube and regarded it, then began passing it slowly from hand to hand. Deanna looked at Kir'xhan. "Give us a minute."

When the other woman had gone, Deanna said simply, "So it looks like you're having a bad day."

"Your powers of observation are truly stunning."

"They are," Deanna said, ignoring the sarcasm. Work hadn't gotten him talking. She tried another tactic. "Tell me about your wife."

He ran the ice cube along his knuckles, grimacing. "What about her?"

"How did you meet?"

"We met at the betrothal ceremony."

"You didn't know her at all before that?"

"No." She felt another surge of terror race through him. He squeezed the ice in his hand.

Deanna looked around. A pair of slippers had been kicked into one corner. The door to the shower was ajar, and a towel was carelessly slung over it. She wasn't prepared to call the messiness a symptom of the present trouble. There was sufficient social pressure that most Vulcans were generally scrupulously neat in their physical appearance and in their workspaces and in the public areas of their homes, but bathrooms and bedrooms were private enough that some of them felt comfortable letting a certain natural untidiness come out.

"Well, you must have enjoyed getting to know her afterwords," Deanna said, when she felt Taurik begin to calm.

"Kir'xhan is from Yel-na, just north of Xirtan. I am from Raal, in Han-Shir. We were bonded, everyone drank tea, and then I went home. We did not see each other for twenty two years after that." That was an interesting contrast to Suvoth and T'Vri, who seemed to have been joined at the hip since infancy. She wondered if there was any significance to the difference, or if it was simply part of normal diversity found within and between cultures.

He swallowed, and Deanna sensed another surge of fear, less intense than the last.

"So you met again when you got married," she said, trying to shift his attention.

"Yes."

She was not going to ask about the wedding. Under normal circumstances, Vulcans glossed over their weddings as quickly as they could, and radiated intense discomfort when the subject came up. She had no idea what happened at a Vulcan wedding, and she suspected she was never going to find out.

"You seem to get along well. You brought her back to the Enterprise with you." It wasn't an automatic thing to bring a spouse on board. There were bureaucratic hurdles, security clearances, interviews and tests to ensure that the spouse in question was likely to integrate well and could handle the risks and hardships of deep space travel. If they'd been willing to go through all of that, they wanted to be together.

"Of course we get along well. Our marriage was arranged by the clan. There is rigorous science behind the decisions." He shifted his weight and ran a hand through his hair. His bangs were sticking straight up. Only years of practice kept the smile off of Deanna's face. "They make mistakes, but not often."

"Well I'm happy for you. She seems like a good person."

Despite everything, she sensed a little surge of fondness, and a certain smug satisfaction. Jackpot, as Will might say.

"And she's very accomplished, I understand," Deana said, trying to draw him out further.

He picked up a new ice cube and rolled it between his palms. "She is a mathematician."

"What's her field?"

"J-space theory. Specifically transformations using the RX conjecture in six or more dimensions."

Deanna grimaced. "I had to do RX transformations in two dimensions at the Academy and it almost broke me."

"Kir'xhan is very intelligent," he said, and the smugness was back. It was endearing.

She kept him talking about her, about what she liked and what she had accomplished and all of the ways that she was perfect, or very nearly so. He was clearly besotted with her, even if he never would have admitted to it. As he spoke, Deanna could feel the tension slowly ebbing out of him. He put the ice cube back in the bowl. His breathing, which had been rapid and irregular, slowed down and smoothed out. Finally, he stopped talking, and pressed two fingers to his forehead. His mental state shifted. Mild trance, she thought. He came out of it a few seconds later.

"I am once again in control of myself." His voice was barely more than a whisper.

He was and he wasn't. He was no longer acutely terrified, but he was not back to normal. It seemed like the best she could hope for. She stood up, and waited for him to do likewise. "Do you think you can sleep?" He was exhausted. Anyone would be after something like that.

"Perhaps."

"Go lay down for half an hour. If you don't fall asleep in that time, you can get back up, but you should rest if you can."

Kir'xhan was seated on the couch. She watched Taurik cross the room and go into their bedroom without a word, then turned to Deanna with a questioning eyebrow.

"He's...better. For now." She turned her clinical eye toward Kir'xhan. She was a tall, solidly built woman with strong features and thick, frizzy brown-black hair. She was wearing a simple brown dress that fell to just below her knees, and colorful embroidered slippers. She had a scarf draped loosely around her neck, kept in place with an IDIC pin. Deanna didn't know if it was a political statement or a fashion choice. She vaguely recalled something about Vulcans wearing IDIC pins as a way to declare their opposition to the isolationist movement, but she couldn't remember the details. "You seem unusually fine."

"I have no symptoms of the disorder."

"None at all?"

"Not that I have been able to detect." Kir'xhan's hands made a restless movement that she almost seamlessly covered up by smoothing out the skirt of her dress.

"Have you any idea why you've been spared?"

"No."

Deanna gestured to a chair and Kir'xhan nodded her permission. Deanna sat. "Do you like it on the _Enterprise_?"

"There is a math club."

"Is that why you came?"

Kir'xhan's expression shifted ever so slightly, and Deanna had the feeling of that there had been a joke in there, but one that had gone entirely over her head. "I did not permit Starfleet Intelligence to pry into the private areas of my life in order to gain access to a group of people playing games with rudimentary set theory." She stood up. "I offer thee water."

Suspecting that a refusal would be extremely rude, Deanna accepted and hoped that this wasn't about to turn into a ceremony that would threaten to take up half of her day. Kir'xhan put out two glasses and opened a bottle of water. She poured it, too careful to be entirely graceful and looked at Deanna expectantly. 

"Do I drink first?" Deanna asked.

"Ah, yes." Kir'xhan ducked her head. She was confused, and mildly embarrassed, but still her emotional radiation was Vulcan normal.

Deanna took a sip. It was highly mineralized water, and Deanna didn't like it, but she had consumed worse in the interests of keeping people at ease. "Out here you have to get used to explaining things to people. You can't assume everyone is familiar with your customs, your taboos, even your bodily functions. May I give you some advice?"

"Please," Kir'xhan said, and Deanna caught a hint of relief.

"Don't be afraid to ask questions. And don't be offended if other people question you. If they get too personal, tell them. Most people will respect your boundaries, and the ones that don't aren't worth spending time with anyway."

Kir'xhan took a sip of her water. Deanna sensed insecurity, but she didn't want to pry. She looked around. The room was very much in the style of generic Starfleet quarters. There were no personalized touches that she could see, but they had only taken possession of these rooms a little over six weeks ago. They might not have had time yet.

"You didn't answer my question earlier. Do you like it here?"

Kir'xhan looked at the door to the bedroom.

"Is he okay?" Deanna asked.

"He is asleep," she said. Deanna took another small sip of water and waited. Finally Kir'xhan turned back and said quietly, as if confessing to something shameful, "I do not like it here."

"Why not?"

For a second, Deanna sensed a vulnerability, and thought Kir'xhan was about to open up. But the moment passed, and she closed off again. "It's simply not what I'm used to."

Deanna crossed her legs and rested her hands against her knee. It was what Will sometimes teasingly called her counselor pose. "I think maybe the reason you don't like it here is that you've been dropped into a totally alien environment, largely dependent on a man you barely know, while newly pregnant and about to become a parent, unexpectedly, for the first time in your life. And you miss your family and friends back home. Am I close?"

Kir'xhan looked down at her hands. Deanna took that as a yes.

"Have you told Taurik any of this?"

She looked up and straightened her shoulders. "No."

"He clearly cares about you. He wouldn't want to see you unhappy." She held up a hand to forestall the objection. "Discontent, if you prefer."

Deanna drained the last of her water and sneaked a glance at the chrono. She hadn't budgeted her time for Taurik's anxiety attack, much less an impromptu counseling session with Kir'xhan, but Kir'xhan clearly needed to talk to someone, and T'Vri, who would have been ideal, was cut off from her because of the illness.

"Now is not a good time for such a conversation," Kir'xhan said, and Deanna turned her attention back to her.

"No," she agreed. "But when this is over, you should talk to him. It's not going to get better unless you do." Her workload loomed. "In the meantime, is there anything I can do to help?"

*

 

Even across a subspace channel, Healer Xhenat, Priestess of the Mind Arts and Adept of the Healer's Cloister at Gol, radiated a gravitas that made Deanna sit up straighter. 

"I have no definitive answers to give you," Xhenat said.

That was a disappointing beginning. Xhenat had been billed to her as one of the foremost psychological experts on Vulcan, and Deanna had been irrationally hoping that she would be able to solve everything. 

Xhenat continued, "The lack of information is troubling. Without a proper Vulcan healer at your disposal, there are certain diagnostic tools which are unavailable to you." Deanna felt a surge of defensiveness for Selar, who was seated next to her, but Selar seemed neither insulted nor bothered. Deanna wondered if she was projecting her own insecurities about not being psi-sensitive enough to practice on Betazed onto Selar . 

"We've discussed returning the ship to Vulcan, but the trip would take weeks," Deanna said. "And if this is some form of contagion, with no idea of how it spreads or what the range is..."

"I and my colleagues would also prefer not to expose our planet to the affected individuals until we have a better understanding of what is happening."

Which was entirely fair, Deanna thought, but also frustrating because at this point her patients needed more than she could give them.

"Do you have any ideas?" Deanna asked. 

Xhenat inclined her head slightly. "I have many ideas, and very little data to back them up. I offer you three hypotheses which I consider most likely. First, this is some form of contagion spread not by an organism, but through telepathy. We have seen such diseases in the past, but never one that spreads by simple proximity. Always they have required at least a mind touch, and most often a deep meld to transfer from person to person.

"Second, someone is deliberately affecting the minds of the Vulcans on the ship. The symptoms described are in some ways similar to a kae'shau, which was used in ancient times to disrupt the mind of an enemy." 

"Could one of the Vulcans on the ship be attacking their colleagues?" Deanna asked.

"It is possible, but unlikely," Xhenat said. "Only an adept would have both the training and the mental ability to attempt it, and the kae'shau has never been used on more than one person at once. To affect so many people would require a mind more powerful than any which has ever been known to us. My third hypothesis is that some environmental factor is affecting the mental processes of the Vulcans aboard your ship. There are several plants and minerals on Vulcan which are known to affect mental and emotional regulation. I will send you a list of known disruptive agents which you may then compare to those things which you have recently encountered." 

Deanna pressed her lips together. Xhenat had neatly summed up the most likely possibilities, but she'd hardly given Deanna anything new to work with. "Any ideas why Kir'xhan is the only one who remains unaffected?"

"Yes. Vulcan women develop a stronger than average psi-resistance and a lowered psi-receptivity during their pregnancy."

Selar said, in response to Deanna questioning look, "Vulcan fetuses come into their telepathy in the womb. Their developing brain cannot shield itself from outside influence. There are strict taboos against touching pregnant women to whom one is not related for this reason, but a pregnancy cannot always be detected on sight, women cannot be shut away for eleven months while they gestate, and every touch cannot be avoided. Thus the need for a pregnant woman to be able to protect both her own mind and the vulnerable mind of her child." She looked back at Xhenat. "I had not thought it that much of an increase in psi-resistance, however." 

"Very few realize how much stronger women become during their pregnancy since our society is careful of pregnant women, and the strength most often lies dormant." Xhenat's face softened in what was almost certainly amusement. "Those who make the mistake of imposing on such a woman do suffer for it."

There was definitely a story there, Deanna thought, but sadly Xhenat didn't seem the type to swap professional horror stories, and in any case they had more important things to discuss. "If her pregnancy is protecting her, that accounts for my most egregious outlier."

"Yes," Xhenat said. "I believe that your theory of the correlation between the interplay between the psi-receptive and psi-deflective Nuri scores and the strength of the symptoms has much merit."

"What theory?" Selar asked.

"I sent it to you the other--" Deanna broke off, feeling Selar's shame. "You've got a lot on your mind right now. It's not surprising you missed it." Selar wasn't seeing patients, and wasn't officially on-duty, but she was helping them to the best of her ability. She was still suffering, though, and Deanna had to remember that she couldn't expect Selar to be up to her usual standards.

"Counselor Troi theorizes that those with a high psi-receptive score and a low psi-deflective score are more severely affected. Her statistical analysis is sound, and her theory is logical. If correct, it suggests that this disorder is the result of an outside mind acting on the affected. I am curious, have any other telepaths or empaths shown symptoms?"

"No. I certainly haven't, and no one else has said anything. I have asked around."

A gong sounded at Gol, the noise far away Deanna caught a wistfulness from Selar, quickly suppressed. 

"I have to raise the obvious question. The most common reason for emotional dysregulation in Vulcans is pon farr."

With the most subtle shift in expression, Xhenat managed to give the impression of a woman who had been very much hoping Deanna would prove smarter than that, all the while preparing herself for the fact that she wouldn't.

"This has nothing to do with pon farr. Pon farr presents almost exclusively in Vulcan males with at least one functional chenesi and a healthy dau-tukh gland, and to their bonded mates by proxy. It has a very specific set of symptoms, including hand tremors, an increase in aggression and a corresponding _decrease_ in fear response, sweating, loss of appetite, restlessness, and, naturally, an increased sexual drive which causes a greater desire to touch one's mate or potential mates, not a sudden revulsion against the thought of any touch. Two of your patients are unbonded females. Another is bonded to a woman who is pregnant with his child, a circumstance that precludes pon farr so absolutely that it cannot even be induced with drugs." Deanna wondered how on earth they knew that. "Additionally, t'guv-nafek levels surge at that time, and the concentration of that hormone in your patients is, if anything, somewhat depressed. Also, it has been twenty two days since the onset of visible symptoms. If these patents were suffering from pon farr, statistically at least half of them would be dead by now. If it were relevant, I would have mentioned it."

Deanna suspected 'could it be pon farr?' was the most common and most irritating question that Vulcan healers got from aliens ignorant of their biology, but she wasn't sorry for asking the question. The ignorance and mystery surrounding pon farr was entirely their own fault. Starfleet Medical had managed to pry exactly one sexuality text out of the hands of the Vulcan Healers Council in two hundred years of trying, and it hadn't been a particularly in-depth work. Completely illogical in Deanna's opinion, but now was not the time to start that argument.

"It pains me that I cannot be of service to you," Xhenat continued, "but I require data. In the absence of it, I can offer you only conjecture and possibilities."

Deanna smiled despite the grim circumstances. "You've been more helpful than you know. It's good to be able to speak to an expert. I pride myself on being able to treat all of the races on the Enterprise, but Vulcan psychology is...tricky."

"Vulcan psychology is chaos, given some semblance of order by sophisticated mental arts which permit us to act in a civilized manner, most of the time."

Deanna's eyebrows went up, but years of training quickly returned them to their place. Even Selar was surprised to hear the matter so bluntly put. Deanna supposed that someone as well-respected as Xhen'at could get away with speaking her mind.

"You don't have a lot of the cognitive biases and shortcuts that most species develop alongside sapience," Deanna said, keeping her voice neutral. Most people would consider that a benefit, but most people weren't aware that those biases came out of underlying heuristics that allowed the brain to conserve processing energy. Being without them was a double-edged sword.

Xhenat nodded. "Yes, and as a result we have to be taught to do things that come naturally to other species. We are bad at letting go of the details, worse at learning to ignore the unimportant parts of our environment. We have only exacerbated the situation with millennia of selective breeding with an eye toward developing our telepathy and focus and pattern recognition. As a result, we come into the world quite raw, and are only able to exist with comfort by being taught how to deal with the sensations and emotions and thoughts that otherwise overwhelm us."

Raw. The word made Deanna frown. "What would happen if someone wasn't taught to deal with that onslaught?"

Selar tilted her head. "Our world would be as it was in the time before Surak. Violent, unstable, and dangerous."

Deanna shook her head, but before she could speak, Xhen'at said, "That is not what she is referring to."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Deanna said, "but before Surak, the, ah, mind arts existed. Not in their present form, but to some extent, passed down between families and developed in monasteries. Gol is almost six thousand years old."

"Six thousand one hundred and sixteen point three eight years have passed since the first stone was laid," Xhen'at said, proving her earlier point about getting caught on the details. "And you are correct. The mind arts have existed since before recorded history. In their most elementary form, they are passed from mother to child in the womb, and during the early years of life."

"What would happen if someone tried to raise a Vulcan child without that knowledge being passed down?"

"No Vulcan fetus has ever survived in an artificial womb. The body can be supported, but the mind withers. They generally die at around eight months of gestation, for no reason other than that they seem to give up on life. If a Vulcan child loses its mother before the end of the first year of its life, there is a thirty two point eight percent chance that it will likewise die. This statistic is a modern one, and assumes that the child is attended to by a skilled healer and is cared for by close relatives. In centuries past, the rate of death was much higher. If the mother dies in the first three months of life, even now, the loss of the child is a virtual certainty. There is no reputable report of a child having survived it."

Deanna gave in to the urge to drum her fingers. Selar was watching her with a curious expression on her face. Xhen'at seemed to be following her to a point, but uncertain as to where she was going with her line of questioning. Deanna wasn't sure herself.

"But the mental training, even of the most elementary sort, isn't done at a year, or even five years. Let's say a child is taken away its mother--from anyone who can help it learn the mental arts--after the age of two or three. What would happen?"

"The child would survive as long as its physical needs were met," Xhen'at said slowly. "But there would be problems. Almost certainly they would have difficulties with sensory processing. Their mind would be far too open to the world. We have been selectively breeding our species for at least fifteen thousand years. A child born now needs the training that developed along side that selective breeding in order to function."

"They would have trouble regulating their emotions."

Xhenat nodded. "Of course."

"Would they be touch averse?"

"Almost certainly."

"Unable to regulate food intake?"

Xhenat inclined her head. "It does not seem like a probable outcome, all other things being equal."

Selar raised an eyebrow. "None of the affected are children. And none of us was abandoned as a child, or otherwise denied necessary mental training."

"That's true," Deanna admitted. She sighed, frustrated. She had twelve patients suffering and she couldn't fix it until she figured out what was causing it.

Xhenats voice brought her back to the moment. "It is an interesting line of questioning. This evening I will meditate upon it, and this entire problem, and inform you if I have any insights. Have you any other questions for me?"

Deanna glanced at Selar, who shook her head slightly. "No," Deanna said. "Thank you for your time."

Xhanat bowed her head. "I come to serve," she said, and the line went dead before Deanna could respond.


	4. Chapter 4

Deanna started off the wrong way down the corridor before realizing her mistake and turning to walk toward the turbolift. The turbolift came and the doors opened. Deanna stared at it, uncomprehending, until the computer chimed. 

"Please enter the turbolift or step away from the doors."

"Counselor, heal thyself," Deanna muttered as she got onto the turbolift. She yawned, stretched, and leaned back against the wall of the lift, staring up at the ceiling. "Computer, what searches have I scheduled in the last week?"

"The following searches have been scheduled, all with Vulcan psychology as the primary search parameter: Nail-biting and correlations with mental illness. Eating disorders. Binge eating. Hunger and food response. Threnos' disease. Rapid-onset anxiety. Rapid-onset mental illness. Communicable telepathic diseases. Environmental factors that correlate with mental illness."

"Okay. Add to that appropriate levels of neatness in private living spaces and stress following marriage. What's my new article count?"

"Four hundred and sixteen articles are awaiting review."

She groaned. "Is that with the neurological studies filtered to Doctor Crusher?"

"Affirmative."

The turbolift came to a stop and Deanna got out, her mind racing with ways to filter the information down to something manageable.

Back in her quarters, she stripped off her uniform and changed into a civilian outfit that consisted of a pair of loose-fitting pants and a sleeveless top. She ordered a hot chocolate with a shot of espresso and sat down at her desk. "Okay computer, remove all articles exclusively dealing with afflictions that primarily affect the elderly. Remove articles that are sociological in nature. Remove--"

The door chimed. Her head fell forward for a second and she was struck with the overwhelming urge to cry. She forced it down. "Come in."

Will stuck his head in. He was also in off-duty clothing. Deanna sensed purpose in him, and also a sense of fun and anticipation. "Will, I have a lot of work to get done, so unless you're here to help me do research, I really need you to leave."

His eyebrows went right up. It hadn't been a very nice way to greet him, she acknowledged to herself, but she was busy. Instead of taking offense, though, he said, "Are you okay?"

Her annoyance evaporated when she felt his concern. She gestured at the computer. "It's so much to review."

He squatted down next to her and rested his hand on hers. "Are you okay?" he asked again. "I've seen you under a lot of stressful circumstances, and you seem unusually affected right now."

"Vulcans are draining," she admitted. "For various reasons. They're powerful telepaths. They get in my head, and when I work with them for any length of time it takes me a while to shake the infulence. Right now... Their emotions are all over the place. Controlled one minute, flaring up the next. It's exhausting."

"Hmm. Well, it seems to me that that's a good reason for you to be even more careful that you don't work too much." 

"I really should at least review these articles."

He narrowed his eyes. "What's the first rule of emergency management?"

"Don't create new victims." He was right. She was doing the emotional equivalent of running into a burning building to rescue other people without checking her own safety gear first. She looked up. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"

"You have options," Will said. "There's a Thai cooking class, a poetry recital, game night in the biology lounge, or we can go to Ten Forward and drink something fruity and eat food of dubious nutritional value ."

Deanna managed a genuine smile. "Let's do that."

In Ten Forward, they were able to get a table despite the busy hour. Ben was on duty, and took their order with a digression to discuss poker and some musician she had never heard of with Will. Deanna, lacking the energy to think about the overwhelming number of choices available to her, fell back on a favorite meal of a chocolate martini and plate of pasta with basil and shrimp.

"What kind of shrimp?" Ben asked. "Bajorian, Terran, Afrid--"

Deanna held up a hand to stop him. "Surprise me." It didn't really matter. The various types of shrimps in the galaxy were all remarkably similar, but she supposed that was what happened an ancient race had pre-programmed the DNA of more than three quarters of the known worlds in their own image.

...which was a revelation that no one had come to terms with yet, Deanna no more than anyone else.

Will ordered a lamb stew and flat bread, and sparkling wine. They sat in comfortable silence, listening to the live music warm up. Mr. Thresh, Mr. Mott's new assistant, was holding an instrument that Deanna didn't recognize, and Ensign Shankar was tuning a harp of some kind. The music in Ten Forward wasn't always to her taste, but it was almost always good. Guinan didn't let just anyone play. Unless the performers were part of some sort of diplomatic delegation or were otherwise likely to cause an inter-planetary incident if denied, they all had to pass an exacting audition process. Guinan hadn't even bent her policy for Captain Picard, when he had put on a small performance with his Ressikan flute.

Deanna was just beginning to feel the tension ease from her back when Kir'xhan walked in. She looked away, hoping to avoid eye contact, but Kir'xhan walked straight over to their table.

"Counselor."

Deanna smiled. "Hello."

"I decided to take your advice and attempt to widen my social circle." She looked around, a little helplessly, and Deanna knew the next words out of her mouth were going to be a request to join them. Any other night, Deanna would have welcomed her, but tonight...

_Imzadi, help._

Deanna didn't fall back on their link often, but there were times when it was invaluable.

Will broke out his most charming smile and stood up. "Kir'xhan. It's wonderful to see you in Ten Forward. Have you met..." He glanced around. "...Alyssa Ogawa?"

Alyssa had been passing by with a drink in each hand. She stopped, awkwardly, and accepted the introduction with bemusement.

"Nurse Ogawa is...also pregnant," Will offered, as though it weren't obvious. Alyssa was no more than days away from having her baby.

Alyssa and Kir'xhan looked at him, Alyssa with an incredulous expression, Kir'xhan simply confused. Deanna pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. Alyssa recovered first and said, "It's nice to meet you. Welcome aboard the _Enterprise_. Why don't you come join me and my friend? We can talk about the experience of gestating a fetus." She glanced at Will. "Maybe we'll even talk about other things too."

Will sat back down, radiating embarrassment and even a little pink in the face. "I could have done that more smoothly."

Deanna touched his hand. "Yes, you could have, but I still appreciate your help."

Their drinks came and they fell back into companionable silence. After a few minutes, Will said, "I have the new Manjula Ruiz recordings." He was trying for casual and failing. He got excited any time one of his favorite musicians released new work. Of course, new was a relative term in deep space. Deanna doubted Ruiz's recordings were less than five or six months old, though they were only getting to hear them now. Will would have had to learn of their existence first, and entertainment news tended to trickle in slowly this far out. Then he would have put in a request to have them sent over subspace, and it would have been filed as a low-priority request. The recordings would have been attached to a subspace packet that had extra room in it, whenever one came along.

"Any good?"

"Excellent," Will said. He drained his drink and gestured to Ben for another one. "And sad. She stared working on it right after Wolf 359. The title of the album...well, it's _Presagio_ , but that's TQ."

"Hmm?" Will sometimes forgot that for all Deanna was half-Human, she hadn't been raised in the Sol system.

"Third Quadrant. It's one of the Martian creole languages. In Standard it translates to 'harbinger', maybe 'omen'."

Deanna grimaced. "I'm surprised you can stand to listen to it."

Will shrugged. "It's cathartic. Don't psychologists like catharsis?"

"It can be useful in small doses," Deanna said as Ben set their food down in front of them and swapped Will's empty glass for a full one.

Two tables over, Alyssa and another nurse whose name Deanna had forgotten laughed loudly. Deanna sneaked a peek at the table. Kir'xhan wasn't laughing, of course, but her body language was relaxed and Deanna was pretty sure she was as amused as they were, in her own way. Deanna hadn't really expected Will's random choice of a dinner companion for Kir'xhan to work out, but they seemed to be having a good time.

The music started up. The Ten Forward staff had cleared a small area for dancing, and the beat was such that a few people had taken up the tacit invitation. Beverly entered with Data a few minutes later. They were sitting at a four person table, and Beverly took one of the empty seats, but Data stood expectantly. "Commander, Counselor," he said.

Beverly was radiating amused anticipation.

Data continued, "I have been speaking to Doctor Crusher about my desire to continue learning about the art of communal dancing. She informs me that a variety of dance partners would be beneficial to my education. As Doctor Crusher is the one who first taught me to dance, it seems wise to seek out another companion for this song." 

Will glanced at Deanna with a small smile. Deanna just hoped that Data didn't step on her feet.

"Commander Riker will you dance with me?"

Will choked on his wine but recovered quickly. "Sure, Data. I'd love to."

"Did you put Data up to that?" Deanna asked, watching them walk away.

"I may have suggested that it was important for him to choose diverse dance partners if he wanted to learn," Beverly said with a wicked smile. Across the room, Will was trying to teach Data an Ithenite four step. "Emphasis on the diversity."

*

 

"Did you put me to bed?" Deanna asked Will the next morning on the way to their meeting. They had stayed in Ten Forward until much too late, and Deanna had been so tired that she could barely recall the walk back to her quarters. She had woken up in her own bed wearing a pair of pajamas that she rarely chose for herself, with her clothing folded neatly on a nearby chair.

Will grinned. "You don't remember? We got back to your quarters and you ordered me to undress you and carry you to bed."

"I ordered you?"

"Very distinctly," Will said, gesturing for her to go first through the doors into the room. "You sounded a bit like your mother," he added meditatively .

Deanna groaned. "Never mind. I don't want to know anything else."

Will raised his eyebrows. "There was nothing else, Counselor."

Picard was waiting for them in one of the small conference rooms, with a light breakfast set out on the table. Beverly was already there, helping herself to a small selection of fresh fruit. The fruit had the asymmetrical, spotted look of something that had come out of hydroponics rather than the replicator, promising a richer flavor if less consistent taste and texture. Picard looked up from his cup. "Thank you all for joining me. I thought a breakfast meeting be a nice change of pace for everyone."

"No arguments from me, sir," Will said, and poured himself a large cup of coffee. He looked over the selection of fruit and croissants, and walked to the replicator to order a plate of scrambled eggs and toast.

Selar entered a moment later. They exchanged a few idle pleasantries while everyone got settled, then Picard said, "Reports. Where do we stand with the condition currently afflicting our Vulcans colleagues?"

"Taurik and Navin have deteriorated further," Crusher said. "And I'm starting to worry about the strain that this is putting on T'Vri's body. The sedatives I've got her on aren't meant to be used long-term, and they aren't good for her liver or her kidneys. Even with the sedatives, her system is still being flooded with stress hormones at levels that could permanently damage her nervous system." She shook her head. "Vulcans are robust, but they can't hold out forever."

Deanna glanced at Selar. Her hands were clenched tight and she was staring intently at the table. She was one of the less-affected of the Vulcans, and she too was starting to fray. Deanna followed her gaze and realized that she was staring at the food. 

"Selar, have you eaten?" Deanna asked quietly.

"Yes, twice already this morning."

Beverly and Deanna shared a look, and Deanna wanted to kick herself for not realizing the insensitivity of inviting Selar to a breakfast meeting. Picard cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should clear the table."

Selar shook her head. "I thank you for your concern, but it is not necessary. I am in control of myself. I am just so hungry. And yet, I have eaten a more than sufficient amount already today. It is an irrational hunger, and should be easy to dismiss, but it is very...hard to be rational about anything at present."

Will rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward. Showing interest and offering comfort, in terms of Terran body language, but intrusive by Vulcan standards. "That sounds horrible."

"It is," Selar said. She closed her eyes briefly. "Forgive me, I thought I could do this, but I cannot. Captain, may I be excused?"

"Of course."

Deanna had half a mind to go with her, but she could sense that Selar didn't want company so she stayed where she was. When she was gone, Picard cleared his throat. "Have you made any progress on a treatment, Doctor Crusher?"

"Not enough. I'm playing around with a drug that will depress their psilosynine levels--"

"Like you used on me, when Pierce left the telepathic echo?" Deanna asked.

"Similar, but that treatment won't translate easily to the Vulcans. Your mind is simpler." Beverly winced. "That came out wrong. I didn't mean--"

"No offense taken," Deanna said. "There's something to be said for a simplicity."

Will looked at Beverly. "If she's simple, what are we?"

"No comment," Beverly said with a smile. Then, with a small shake of her head, she continued, "The problem is that I can't isolate that one neurotransmitter. Every time I start to play around with it, I end up causing other neurochemicals to raise or lower, and the computer starts flashing warnings about a forty percent chance of fatal side effects. I haven't gotten a single drug out of stage one computer models yet." She sighed. "I reached out to the Vulcan Medical Authority and apparently they've been working on figuring out a way to manipulate psilosynine levels in isolation using drugs for centuries so I'm not overly optimistic about my chances, but I have to keep trying."

Picard looked at Deanna. "Counselor?"

"I'm giving them puzzles," Deanna said with a shake of her head. "Admittedly it does seem to be helping. Xhenat sent me some puzzles that were specifically designed to help with anxiety. We are well beyond the point of puzzles and talking being an adequate treatment all on their own, but that's all I have for them right now."

They all lapsed into silence. The heavy mood around the table was interrupted by Picard's comm badge chirping.

"Data to Captain Picard."

"Go ahead."

"Captain, you have ordered that we look for anything that may be related to the present affliction of the Vulcan members of the crew."

Everyone at the table looked at Captain Picard, or more accurately at his comm badge. "Yes, Mr. Data. What have you found?"

"Long range sensors have detected an abandoned ship. We believe it to be a Vulcan ship that was reported missing nine months ago, the _Psthan_."

"Set a course for the ship, Mr. Data, warp six. Counselor, Number One, join me on the bridge." He wiped his mouth on his napkin and stood up from the table. "Perhaps we are finally about to get some answers."

Deanna stayed back to check on Selar. She found her in her quarters, and after being assured that she was "functional, and not in any immediate danger", Deanna got to the bridge just as Data was briefing Picard about the _Psthan_.

"A scientific vessel, with a crew of nineteen. They were using the metaphasic shielding first developed on the _Enterprise_ to investigate the coronal mass emissions of an unusually active red dwarf star, attempting to come up with a stellar weather control system that could prevent large, disruptive solar flares. The disappearance of the vessel was widely reported since several noted astrophysicists and subspace physicists were lost. Three children also went missing along with the ship."

"How old were the children?" Deanna asked.

"Six months, two years, and five years."

Picard glanced at her. "Is that important?"

"I'm not sure." She took a seat in her usual place and took out a PADD. Her work was falling sadly behind due to the ongoing crisis with the Vulcans, and while the other members of her department were taking on as much as they could, there were some things she simply couldn't delegate. At times she preferred to do this sort of routine paperwork in the quiet of her office, but today she wanted the capable, focused minds of the bridge crew around her, and the soft sounds of the routine of the ship.

She passed a few hours in this work. Picard stayed on the bridge for the first hour, then disappeared into his ready room to deal with his own paperwork. Will was mostly on the bridge, only leaving for meetings from time to time. She managed to clear most of her backlog, and was so engrossed in reading Counselor Nguyen's weekly report that she was startled with Data announced, "We have reached the _Psthan_ , Commander."

"Take us out of warp. Captain to the bridge. And raise shields, just in case."

"An abundance of caution, Number One?" Picard asked, coming out of his ready room. He must have felt the ship drop out of warp.

"Given everything that's going on, it seems wise."

"Agreed," said Picard. "What's on our long range sensors, Mr. Data?"

"Nothing sir."

"Nothing?"

"To be accurate, I used the word 'nothing' in the colloquial sense to mean, 'nothing that I believe to be of importance'. There are three stellar bodies in range of our sensors, an A-type star, an L-type star, and an M-type star. All three have at least two planetary bodies. There is also cosmic dust at concentrations typical for this part of the galaxy, a small rogue planet, and many comets and asteroids within range. There is a slightly higher than usual amount of gamma radiation, but nothing intense enough to affect ships systems."

"But nothing of any importance," Picard said dryly.

"Correct."

"How far are we from the nearest star system?"

"Five point seven light years."

Picard looked at Will. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

"So it would seem."

"Put the ship on screen," Picard ordered.

There was something inherently spooky about a dead ship, especially to a seasoned space traveler. The _Psthan_ was slowly rotating, and drifting at--Deanna glanced at the display in front of her chair--point two eight kilometers per second relative to the galactic center. There were no exterior running lights lit. In fact, Deanna knew that the illumination of the ship was an illusion. Had she been in a space suit staring at it, the near-total darkness of this region of space would have made it next to impossible for her to see anything, even with the lights of the _Enterprise_ nearby. The computer had taken in all of the EM radiation and constructed something on the screen that the bridge crew's eyes could comprehend.

"Let's get a closer look at that damage," Will said, and the view on the screen shifted to show a hole burned in the side of the ship exposing parts of two decks. Will leaned forward in his char. "What kind of weapon caused that?"

"Unknown," Data said. "However I am picking up traces of organic material."

"Organic?"

"Yes sir. The amounts are too small for ship's sensors to accurately analyze. A sample may yield better information."

"Life signs?" Picard asked.

"None, sir, but organic matter consistent with at least a dozen dead bodies."

Deanna closed her eyes briefly.

Picard looked at Worf. "Lower our shields. I don't believe we're in any immediate danger. Number One, take an away team. Get a sample of that damage for analysis. Collect the bodies if you can." He frowned at the view screen. "Let's try to figure out what happened over there."


	5. Chapter 5

"Certainly not," Taurik said. "You are nine weeks pregnant and you are not a Starfleet officer."

Kir'xhan raised an eyebrow. "Starfleet regulation 12, paragraph 9 states that a civilian living aboard a starship may be asked to participate in an away mission if the officer in charge of the mission believes that their specific knowledge or expertise will increase the changes of mission success. Civilians cannot be ordered to perform any duties, and all service must be on a strictly volunteer basis." She looked at Deanna and Will. "I volunteer."

Taurik glared--and it was a glare--at Will and then turned to his wife. "You are a mathematician. I fail to see how your knowledge and experience will aid in mission success."

"In this case I think it is my cultural knowledge as a Vulcan which they want. If anyone else were capable of going, they would be sent, but they are not."

"I forbid it, then," Taurik said. Will shot him an incredulous look in response to his imperious tone, but Kir'xhan didn't seem to care or even notice.

"You are not in your right mind," she said.

"My logic is intact," Taurik said. Even he knew he was lying.

"Is it?" Kir'xhan held out her hand. "Touch me."

Taurik stared at her hand, started to reach out, and then drew back. "You know I cannot." A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched. 

"And that is precisely why I am going. The changes to my brain brought on by early pregnancy have somehow rendered me immune to whatever is causing the suffering of the rest of the Vulcans on this ship, including you. I do not intend to sit idle while T'Vri's anger slowly kills her and you are so frightened by a nameless dread that you can barely manage to leave our quarters and those on this ship who come from my world cannot bear to touch even the people they most care for."

"What can you possibly accomplish on the _Psthan_ that they cannot," Taurik said, gesturing to Will and Deanna.

"I do not know. But I am Vulcan and it is a Vulcan ship. If there is something amiss, I may spot what they cannot." 

"That's what we're hoping for," Deanna said.

"We've scanned the ship several times. There are no detectable life signs or energy signatures. We're going in with a security detail. Every precaution is being taken." Will faced Kir'xhan as he spoke, but his words were for Taurik's benefit.

Taurik looked at Will. "Her life is my life. Can you even conceive of what that means?"

"He cannot," Kir'xhan said simply. "He does not share our biology or our culture. But now the Commander knows that he will be responsible for both of our lives, and that of our unborn child. As the lives of every being on this ship often hinge on his decisions, I think him capable of the task."

"Uh, thank you." Will paused for a moment, and when no further objections were voiced, he looked at Kir'xhan. "We're beaming over at 1430 hours. Meet us in transporter room two."

Naturally, Kir'xhan was punctual to the minute. 

The _Psthan_ was a dead ship. No life support, no gravity, no heat. That meant environmental suits, and all of the hassle and discomfort that they entailed. The transporter officer helped Kir'xhan get suited. Will told Worf to check her suit, and then checked it again himself. Kir'xhan's earlier words about the weight of his responsibilities had gotten to him. He had enough command experience that Deanna trusted he would be able to shake off any lingering worries in a few hours, a day or two at most, but she filed the information away just in case.

"Comm check," Will said, once everyone was suited.

Deanna, Geordi, Data, Worf, Kir'xhan, and the three security guards assigned to them sounded off.

Deanna switched channels with a tap on the control panel of her suit.

"Kir'xhan, I set us up on a private channel as well. You and I can talk without anyone else overhearing, in case we run into anything over there that you need help with."

There was a pause. Deanna waited while Kir'xhan worked through her emotions, first offense, then rumination, and finally gratitude. "Thank you," Kir'xhan said.

Worf and Will were having a discussion about something related to mission security. Deanna tuned them out, trusting them to arrive at the best course, and stayed on the private channel with Kir'xhan.

"Can I ask you a possibly inappropriate question?"

"You may ask."

"What did Taurik mean, exactly, when he said that your life was his life."

She hesitated. "An explanation would require a knowledge of Vulcan biology that most do not possess."

"I know about pon farr," Deanna said, and was amazed at the intense stab of embarrassment and shame that she sensed from Kir'xhan at the mere mention of the words. Even Selar had been radiating embarrassment when pon farr had come up during their conversation with Xhenat, and Starfleet Medical went out of their way to break people of any sort of hesitation to discuss taboo subjects. The inhibition was incredibly deep seated. Deanna wondered if maybe it was at least partially hard wired and didn't even need to be taught. Kir'xhan wasn't the person to ask, but Xhenat might be.

When the embarrassment had passed, Deanna sensed mild exasperation. "In that case, Taurik is of the Clan of Ithar. Historically, their men were not permitted to remarry if their mate died."

"That's horrible." Deanna turned over the implications of such a policy over in her mind. "That's stupid!"

"The rest of my planet agreed with you and put intense pressure on them to change their laws. It took centuries, but about five hundred years ago they relented and remarriage became something permitted to Ithari men." She paused. "Some men, especially from very conservative houses, still hold to the old ways, and will refuse a new wife regardless of the official stance of the clan."

"Is Taurik from a conservative house?"

"He is. Not an extreme one, but...if I died from an illness, or in some sort of unpredictable accident, Taurik would likely remarry. If I were to die of violence, or in any way that he believed, logically or not, he ought to have been able to prevent, it is very possible that he would conclude that the only way to recover his personal honor would be to...not to precisely commit suicide, but..."

"But close enough," Deanna said.

"So then you understand."

"Somewhat. As you said earlier, it's not my biology or my culture."

Anything more that Kir'xhan might have been inclined to say was lost because Will and Worf had settled their debate. There were too many of them for the platform to hold all at once, so Will sent Worf and the rest of the security team, along with Data in the first wave. When the transporter officer declared them safely aboard, the rest of them stepped up. Deanna felt a surge of anxiety as she got into position. At first, she thought it had come from Kir'xhan, but it was her own. She didn't know what the Psthan held, and she wasn't looking forward to finding out. 

Before she could consider that any more, the transporter beam took hold and she was beamed away.

*

 

They materialized in the transporter room of the other ship. Deanna felt cold, although she knew it was her imagination. The only illumination was the lights from the environmental suits. Small objects floated by, untethered by gravity. When they stepped, there was the familiar chunk-chunk of the magnetic locks on the boots releasing and adhering again to the deck plate.

Worf was standing at the door to the transporter room, already opened. His team was standing guard just outside. When Will stepped off of the transporter platform, he said, "This area is secure. No signs of threats."

"Good. Data, Geordi, find engineering, see if you can get the lights and gravity back on. Deanna, Kir'xhan, you're with me. Worf, I want one guard with Data and Geordi, one with my team, and I want you to form a team with one other. Assign your people as you see fit."

"Aye sir." Worf gave the orders, putting Frip with Deanna, Will, and Kir'xhan.

The _Psthan_ was a much smaller ship than the _Enterprise_ , with only four decks and most of the space taken up by labs. The crew of just over twenty had filled all of the available living space. Deanna peered at an informational plaque in the corridor. It was in Vulcan, but her helmet display helpfully put up a Standard translation. "Released to the stars in the year 14,318," Deanna read. 

"Kir'xhan, how old does that make this ship?"

"Four hundred and seventeen point six years, using Federation time units."

They were on the public channel, and Will whistled. "Your people know how to build things to last."

"We are from a resource poor planet. We do not discard anything without good cause. That said, I suspect that less than twenty percent of this vessel is original. At a certain point these ships become a foremother's bracelet."

"Is that like the ship of Theseus?" Will asked.

"Or Lasara's house?" Deanna asked.

Data, who must have been listening in on the public channel, chimed in. "All three are examples of thought experiments used to explore whether or not replacing all of the components of an object continues the existence of the original object, or results in an entirely new object. Other examples include--"

"Thank you Data, another time," Will said quickly.

"Yes sir."

They found the first bodies in crew quarters. Two males and a female, one human and two Telerites, mummified from exposure to the vacuum of space. There were no obvious signs of injury or illness.

Will swore under his breath even though he had known to expect them. He was mostly sad, and a little angry. "Riker to _Enterprise_. We’ve found three bodies so far. Should we beam them to sickbay for examination?"

Beverly’s voice came across instead of the Captain’s. "Give me five more minutes, Commander. I'm setting up a biohazard containment protocol in the morgue. There are too many unanswered questions right now, and I don’t want to risk something getting loose on the ship."

"Tag any bodies you find," Picard said. "We will begin beaming them over as soon as Doctor Crusher says her team is ready to receive them."

"Understood. Riker out."

They placed a small transponder on each of the three bodies and moved on.

It was impossible to not be creeped out by the silent, still ship. They found more bodies as they went, mostly in the crew quarters. Some were alone, others in groups. Most bore no evidence of trauma, but one had a broken arm, another a shattered nose. The injuries showed signs of hasty first aid. There were two humans, three Telerites, and an Edosian on the crew roster. Worf radioed to say that the Edosian was in Engineering, and showed signs of having committed some sort of ritual suicide. One of the humans was huddled curled around his Vulcan mate, their mummified bodies locked together. Will tagged them, and they moved on.

The Enterprise let them know that Beverly was ready, and all of the already tagged bodies dissolved in a sparkle of transporter energy.

Kir'xhan was pensive. Deanna thought about checking on her and decided against it. She wouldn't welcome any suggestion that her control was less than perfect, and there was nothing to indicate that she was in distress.

"Geordi to Commander Riker."

"Go ahead," Will said.

Geordi was frustrated. "Commander, everything down here is completely fried. I’d need additional supplies and a full engineering team to even begin making repairs." There was a pause and a grunt. "And even then, it would take a few days to get the gravity back on, though I might be able to give you lights and air sooner than that."

"Any ideas what might cause damage like this?" Will plucked a floating PADD out of the air and then released it again when a quick scan of the contents yielded no useful information. 

"Yes, actually, and you aren’t going to like it. I’ve seen this sort of total system meltdown caused by an SSSD."

Deanna didn’t know what that was, but Will's emotional radiation turned angry. "Okay. Don’t worry about the life support. Focus on seeing if you can find logs, records, anything that might shed light on exactly what happened."

"What's an SSSD?" Deanna asked.

"Single Shot System Disruptor," Will said. "They aren’t used very often. They don’t make sense for a military vessel. The power requirements are too high, and they’re too easy to defend against." He paused, and Deanna could imagine him frowning. "The only people that use them routinely are Orion slavers. Their ships are big enough, and their targets are defenseless enough. Find a small civilian vessel with limited shielding, fry its systems, and take everyone on board for...whatever."

Forced into sex work. Worked to death in a mine. Used in medical experiments. Force-fed and slaughtered for food. The possibilities went on and on, and most of them were straight out of your worst nightmares.

The emotional atmosphere in the room turned cold as everyone contemplated that. Will broke the uncomfortable silence. "Let’s get to the bridge."

Worf and Nishan were already there. "The ship is secure, Commander. We found five bodies, including these two." He gestured to the two bodies floating on the bridge. One looked like the captain. The other had a broken leg that had been splinted.

Will's team had found nine people, Data's team four. That was eighteen. A crew of nineteen, plus three children. They were missing one adult and all three of the children.

"We also found this." Worf held out a case, roughly fifty centimeters long and wide, and maybe twenty high. "It was tethered to the computer console. They wanted it found."

Will took the case. "What's inside?"

"The tricorder says it's paper. With graphite. Probably writing of some kind."

Will looked at the case for a moment, then came to a decision and put a tag on it. "Send it back to the Enterprise. Tell them to open it in a secure location, just in case the tricorder is wrong."

A few minutes later, the case along with the two bodies on the bridge were beamed away.

Deanna looked around. She could feel Will, slightly stronger than everyone else, and Kir’xhan and Narik and Reyal. More distantly, she could sense Geordi, Frip, and Williams. And the emotions of everyone still on the _Enterprise_ were faint, but a comforting background sensation, reminding her that they were there.

"Do you sense anything out of the ordinary?" Deanna asked Kir’xhan on the private channel.

"I do not," Kir’xhan said. "Though I confess I find this place...disturbing."

Deanna thought of mummified bodies floating in the vacuum, everything silent and dark and cold and weightless. "You aren’t alone in that."

They made their way to the damaged part of the ship next. Up close, the damage looked almost surgically clean. It was as if someone had come along and cut a very precise hole in the side of the ship. Data joined them. Geordi had beamed over to the _Enterprise_ with the main computer core, hoping to coax some additional information out of it. Worf had sent back two of the guards also, leaving just himself and Frip as security.

Data scanned the edge of the damage. "My readings confirm what was suggested by the Enterprise sensors. This was not caused by any form of energy weapon. It appears to be some sort of organic compound capable of eating through the hull of this ship." He consulted his tricorder. "The substance may be analogous to saliva."

" _Saliva?_ " Will leaned in, and stuck his head out into space, looking around as though there might be something hanging on the hull that would explain things.

Data tapped thoughtfully at his tricorder. "Yes, sir. Doctor Crusher should make a more detailed analysis to be certain, but that is my preliminary conclusion based on these readings."

Frip made his way over to the damaged section of hull and ran his hand along the metal. "I do not want to meet whoever ate part of this ship."

"I had a Horta colleague who might have done it," Kir'xhan said. "She was a brilliant theorist, and violence was anathema to her ."

Will pulled his head back inside the ship. "She's right. We have no idea what happened here, so let's be careful to reserve judgement." But he was afraid, and angry, and despite his words, he didn't want to meet them either. Worf was excited, as he always was at the thought of a new foe, but Deanna sensed that even he found the thought of an adversary that could eat metal somewhat unnerving.

Frip turned and walked down the hall, tricorder out. He paused, and walked back and forth in front of the same spot several times. "Commander," he said, "I think there's a...something here."

"A something?" Will echoed.

He was staring at his tricorder. "Sorry, sir. A door, maybe?"

"A sanctuary," Kir'xhan said. She pointed to a symbol on the wall that looked like an eight petaled flower. "That means refuge. There's a hidden room here. Many Vulcan ships have these rooms. One of this era certainly would. If the ship is boarded, children and the infirm can be hidden away while in theory the rest of the crew fights off the intruders."

"A panic room," Will said. "I'm familiar with the concept. Maybe they figured a few people could survive longer in there."

"Could anyone still be alive?" Worf asked.

"I can't sense anyone," Deanna said.

"The rooms do come stocked with additional air and water, but not enough to keep someone alive for nine months," Kir'xhan said. "And they do not generally have food. They are a temporary measure, not a long-term survival strategy."

Will ran his hand along the wall. "How do we get in?"

Kir'xhan stepped foward and touched the flower, running her hand along three petals in one direction, then in the other direction across five petals, and finally touching the center of the design. A small section of wall slid back, revealing a hidden door. The entire mechanism must have been mechanical in nature given the lack of power on the ship. Impressive engineering.

"Does everyone on your planet just naturally know how to do that?" Frip asked.

"We are taught, as part of emergency preparedness training. These rooms have a long history. They are not designed to keep out other Vulcans, and would not be effective against an enemy who has taken the time to research our society in detail, but there are still circumstances under which they are useful."

As with all of the other doors on the ship, they had to locate the emergency lever and pry them open. Will ran his arm light along the dark recesses, gasping when he got to the grizzly sight of a burned, mutilated body. Frip made the high-pitched chirping that was his species' equivalent of a scream, then gave a little purr, embarrassed. Deanna drew her a sharp breath through her teeth.

"Assuming he or she is Vulcan, that's number nineteen," Will said, stepping into the room. "The entire crew." He ran his light around the room again.

"No sign of the three children," Deanna said.

The emotional radiation turned uncomfortable as everyone contemplated what might have happened to them. Finally, Will said, "Let's get back to the ship. I'm done with this place."


	6. Chapter 6

"They never saw them coming," Will said. They were in the Captain’s ready room, the papers found on the ship--it had been papers inside the case--strewn out across his desk. "The _Psthan_ was inside the corona of the star. Their sensors were completely blind, but they were deep inside of Federation space, and no one was expecting any trouble. They were concerned with not being cooked alive by the star, not with being attacked, and certainly not with being attacked by an Orion slave ship."

"They are so rare these days. The Orion government finally outlawed them. The Orion Syndicate does traffic in sentient beings, but even they look down on the old style slavers now." Picard picked up one of the pieces of paper, careful to hold it by the edges. They’d used a piece of soft graphite as a writing instrument, and the writing smudged easily.

Will nodded. "Geordi was right. It was an SSSD. They were shielded against the star's emissions, but the type of shielding they were using wasn't the same as you'd find on a starship, and didn't completely block the SSSD. Because of the partial shielding, they managed to generate a warp field despite the hit they'd taken, but they had no idea where they were going."

Picard set the paper down. "I suppose if I had an Orion slave ship as my only other option, even a blind warp jump would begin to look attractive."

"Agreed," Will said. His emotional radiation was a mix of anger and sadness and fervent denial. The last was probably him trying to tell himself that in a similar situation, he would have found a way out for himself and his crew. It was one of the comforting lies that people told themselves when they ran into tragedies. "Interestingly, they must have been traveling at a much higher rate of warp than they would normally have been capable of. The log says they were only at warp for about twenty minutes. They couldn't have known this, but given where they started and where they ended up, they would have had to have been traveling at something like warp nine point nine nine nine six."

"Any theories as to how that's even possible?" Picard asked.

"Data and Geordi have a few," Riker said. "They got briefly very excited, and then realized that the odds of being able to intentionally recreate the exact interactions between the star's corona, the ship's warp drive, and the SSSD are vanishingly small."

"Hmm. Well, undoubtedly someone will get a paper out of it," Picard said dryly. Troi smiled. The sheer number of scientific papers to come out of the _Enterprise_ , many of them describing phenomena that were completely impossible to replicate, was something of a running joke at this point.

Will cleared his throat and continued the tale of the ill-fated _Psthan_. "They fell out of warp here, although of course they had no idea where here was. They pretty quickly realized that they had nothing--no air scrubbers, no heat, no gravity--and no hope of getting it back on before they all suffocated and froze to death in more or less that order."

Picard leaned back, arms crossed over his chest, frowning.

"They rustled up every piece of paper they could find. Someone found some graphite and sharpened it." He gestured to the papers on the table. "You see the result. It’s not just a log of what happened to them, but also as much of their research as they could write down, and personal messages to people back home. All in the hopes that someone would find it some day."

"Which we did," Deanna said. It was a very small good thing to come out of such a terrible situation, but it was a good thing.

"This," Picard waved his hand over the papers, "will be returned to Vulcan at the soonest opportunity. They will know that the crew of the _Psath_ met their deaths with courage, and with concern for others and for the preservation of knowledge foremost in their minds." He frowned thoughtfully. "Was there any indication of the sort of emotional disorder affecting the Vulcans of the _Enterprise_?"

Will shook his head, his emotional radiation, and that of Picard’s, turning to frustration.

"We found a total of nineteen bodies on the ship. The three children are missing. The record indicates they put the children in the sanctuary room, to try to keep them alive for as long as possible. It had oxygen, and food and water for several weeks. They had to include an adult, and they chose the youngest child’s mother. That's who we found in there."

"So it appears that someone came along later, killed the adult, and took the children," Picard said. He rose from his desk and walked to his replicator to order his usual mid-afternoon tea, glancing at Will and Deanna to see if they wanted anything. Will shook his head, but Deanna asked for ginger tea, lightly sweetened.

"There's one more thing," Will said, after Picard had returned to his seat. "They set off a nuclear bomb."

"Why on earth would they even have a nuclear bomb?" Picard asked. 

"They didn't," Deanna said. "They made one." It wasn't that hard to rig a primitive nuclear weapon, with the right materials. The most difficult part of the process was enriching the uranium, and most ships had at least some highly enriched uranium sitting around. It was being phased out as new ways of doing things made it obsolete, but a few technologies still required it. The crew of the _Psthan_ had managed to scrounge about two kilos out of various places. They had worked without much in the way of precautions, and Beverly said that several of them would have died of radiation poisoning in less than two days, if they hadn't died of oxygen deprivation first.

"Why make a nuclear weapon?" Picard asked, then almost immediately snapped his fingers as he figured it out. "A distress beacon."

Will nodded. "They figured a sudden spike of gamma radiation might catch someone's attention and make them come investigate. They thought it wasn't likely to save most of them, but the kids might make it out, locked in the sanctuary as they were."

"Well this is all very interesting," Picard said, "but we still have no clear idea of how, if at all, this is connected to the psychological affliction of our Vulcans. And we don't have any idea who came in response to the distress beacon, why they killed that poor woman, or what they did with the children."

"No, sir."

Picard pinched the bridge of his nose, and the three of them sat in silence, no one wanting to utter the obvious question. 

Now what?

*

Deanna was asleep when the call came asking her to report to sickbay. It wasn't Beverly who called, but one of the nurses, which made Deanna's stomach drop. It was never a good sign when Beverly was too busy to tap her comm badge.

By the time she arrived in sickbay, it was all over. Beverly was angry, the very particular flavor of anger that she got when she lost a patient. A body lay on one of the biobeds, covered in a sheet. Deanna didn't have to ask who it was. Suvoth was standing next to it, stone-faced but with trembling hands. Deanna stepped closer. She had to say his name three times before he looked at her.

"Let me take you back to your quarters."

He shook his head.

"Okay." She resisted the urge to put her hand on his shoulder and found Beverly in her office. Beverly's anger had cooled somewhat, but she was still upset, resting her head on one hand, and drumming the fingers of her other against the desk. Deanna sat down. "What happened?"

"Exactly what I was afraid of. The sedatives were starting to depress respiration, so we backed them off, but then her myosine levels surged which made her blood pressure bottom out. We tried to compensate with a different drug, and that brought her blood pressure back up to detectable levels, but by then her other systems were going haywire. She started having seizures, and her temperature spiked...I'll need to do an autopsy to figure out exactly it was that killed her, but at the end it was like her entire system just crashed." Beverly leaned back in her chair and sighed, staring up at the ceilings. "Vulcan brains..." She lifted her head and looked at Deanna. "This is a species that can go ten days without food, water, or sleep and be perfectly fine at the end of it, but their emotions can literally kill them."

"Poor emotional health can kill a lot of people."

"Usually not so quickly, or so dramatically," Beverly said.

Fair, Deanna thought, although she had seen a few dramatic deaths as a result of untreated emotional distress in her time. She looked back at Suvoth, who was standing, head bowed, over the body of his wife. She was the mother of his son, someone he had known since his infancy, and the woman he had relied on to literally save his life periodically for decades. His emotional radiation was muted. He was still in shock.

Deanna stood. "I need to get him home."

"Just so you know, Selar has the katra," Beverly said, as Deanna was turning to leave.

Deanna turned around, opened her mouth, closed it, and finally asked, "Was that wise?"

"Under the circumstances, I don't think it was, but..." She spread her hands in resignation. "I couldn't exactly tell them not to." She shrugged in the face of Deanna's exasperation. "It's protected under the Cultural and Religious Rights Act."

So it was. "How is that going to affect Selar?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Beverly said with a grimace.

Deanna sighed. "I'll contact Xhenat and see what she has to say about it." After she got Suvoth back to his quarters. After she checked in on Selar. After she tried to salvage a little bit of sleep tonight.

She stepped close to Suvoth and said softly, "It's time to go."

He followed her, silent, through the dimmed corridors of the _Enterprise_. He sat down on the couch when they arrived. He was still wearing his pajamas, and the couch had scattered pillows and a blanket on it. He had been sleeping on it. Of course they hadn't been able to share a bed since this whole thing began.

"Do you want anything?"

"No."

"Is there anyone who can come stay with you tonight?"

"No."

His emotional radiation was still muted, and told her nothing of the state he'd be in when the grief finally hit, but she had no good reason to force her or any other company on him.

"The Captain will write a letter to your son, but if you want to break the news to him yourself, I can tell him to hold off on sending it until you've had a chance to speak to him."

Suvoth nodded absently. "He may already sense the loss. The maternal bond fades, but it never entirely goes away."

There was no proof of Vulcan telepathy over this sort of distance, but there was enough anecdotal evidence that it couldn't be entirely dismissed. And since all of the stories about it involved death, and separating two people by several thousand light years and then killing one of them wasn't the sort of study likely to get past an ethics board, it was going to remain anecdotal.

"I'll leave you alone now, but please reach out if you need anything."

She turned to leave, but was called back by his soft, "Counselor?"

"Yes?"

He had been staring at the wall, but now he turned to look at her. "How do I live without her?"

She swallowed and blinked against the prick of tears. "I can't answer that for you. I can tell you that I have seen a lot of people suffer horrible losses and ask themselves the exact same question. And there isn't an easy answer, or any answer really, but you just keep going, and it hurts and it's awful, but eventually it starts to get better. Eventually you learn how."

He stood up and smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from his sleeve. "Good night, counselor," he said decisively. 

"Good night."

*

Selar seemed, if anything, slightly better than she had been when Deanna spoke to her in her quarters the next morning.

"Can you access T'Vri's memories?"

Selar raised an eyebrow. "That would be a gross violation of her privacy."

Deanna frowned. "Surely she would have wanted us to use every available means to get answers."

"She may or may not, but I do not pry into people's minds without express permission, and she is not capable of giving permission at this time."

"It's not a mind, it's a memory engram. A shadow."

Selar inclined her head. "Perhaps."

"Perhaps?" Deanna frowned. "The katra isn't a person." Federation science said it wasn't. Starfleet policy said it wasn't, and didn't classify it as a life form. Officially it was Information Class II, all reasonable means taken to preserve it.

"It may be, or it may not be. Proof remains elusive. You may, if you like, wade into the theological debate regarding the precise nature of the katra with someone who is not me. In my opinion, she remains a person, and I will not violate her."

That, it seemed, was that.

In answer to her question, Xhenat wrote back, "I cannot give you a specific answer with respect to your current situation because your current situation is unprecedented, but the carrying of a katra rarely causes problems, even when there is an illness present in the carrier." She had attached a file with a half a dozen case studies and another with a statistical analysis that was so detailed that it made Deanna's eyes water just to look at it. Deanna decided to take her word for it.

Suvoth was so tightly clamped down on his emotions that Deanna's head ached when she spoke to him. He refused to give her the slightest opening into how he was actually doing. She couldn't have forced him out of it even if she'd tried, so she left him alone, hunched over his computer, working on protein analysis like his life depended on it.

She made her rounds with the rest of the Vulcans, noting that most of them looked just a little bit worse today. All of them had heard about T'Vri. Kir'xhan was asleep on the couch when Deanna arrived. Taurik came to the door, and gestured her in, but nodded to his wife, a warning to be quiet.

Deanna kept her voice to a whisper. "How is she?"

"As she was. Better than I am, only very tired. But I believe that to be related to the pregnancy, and not the illness."

"How are you?" He looked better than some, but not good. There was exhaustion in his face, and tension in his shoulders. He was wearing civilian clothing, and the collar of his shirt wasn't laying correctly. There was also a faint shadow of a beard on his face. That sort of inattention to appearance was not a good sign.

He spread his hands, the Vulcan equivalent of a shrug. "If I die, she will be left alone with an infant child. It is hard to be equanimous about this."

Deanna gave in to the urge to pinch the bride of her nose. "I don't think anyone expects you to be equanimous about the thought of dying and leaving your pregnant wife alone."

He raised an eyebrow. "I am Vulcan, raised in the disciples."

"Well sometimes I think Vulcan disciplines want a little too much from the people who adhere to them," Deanna said, letting her frustration escape into her voice. She frowned, annoyed with herself. It was not her place to judge how they chose to live their lives.

He spread his hands again. "It is not the easiest path, but it is the one we have chosen for ourselves. It has rewards."

Kir'xhan stirred in her sleep, and opened her eyes. She laid blinking, as if trying to remember where she was, then sat up. "Counselor?"

"Just checking in," Deanna assured her.

She nodded, looked down at her hands and back up, and said, "I do not know if this is relevant, but I had a dream that the three missing children were calling out to me. It may have been nothing more than a manifestation of my subconscious attempting to process the unsettling events of yesterday, but given how little data we have to work with, it seems worth mentioning."

Taurik sat down next to her, not touching. Deanna took the seat on the other side of the room. "I agree. What can you tell me about the dream?"

Kir'xhan looked at Taurik. She didn't say anything, but he got up and got her a glass of water. After he gave it to her, she said, "I was on a ship. It was impossibly large. It seemed, in my dream, to be...endless. It was dark, but not cold. Uncomfortably warm, in fact." She paused, eyes going back and forth as she searched her memories. "It was very humid. The air felt...wet. More than that, it felt slimy. Something was pressing on me. Not physically, but...mentally there was a weight. It was suffocating."

Taurik got up and went into the bedroom. Deanna could feel the choking terror overcoming him, and winced. "Should I..."

Kir'xhan shook his head. "No. He wants to be alone. He gets under the bed. It helps." She closed her eyes. "But I should not have told you that."

"I won't tell him that you did." Hiding under the bed was a fairly benign reaction as these things went. As long as he wasn't hurting himself, Deanna could let him be. "Can you continue, or do you need to take a break?"

"I can continue." She glanced again at the bedroom door.

"There was a suffocating weight," Deanna prompted.

Kir'xhan turned her focus back to Deanna. "Yes. I was walking down a long hallway. There were children crying. They were not saying anything, just crying and screaming. I couldn't find them no matter how hard I tried. I turned, and I was in a...room, I suppose, but the walls and floors were like flesh. It was like being in a flesh sack. The mental weight grew greater. I was not in control of myself. I could not shield my mind from anything. I felt...eveyrthing." She gasped and buried her face in her hands, drawing slow breaths.

"Kir'xhan?"

She shook her head and Deanna got up and walked to the window, doing her best to ignore her. Kir'xhan dropped her hands. "I apologize for my lapse."

"The cause is sufficient," Deanna said.

Kir'xhan pressed her hand to her mouth, briefly, and then her control seemed to reassert itself. "The dream ended at that point." She got up and walked to the replicator, ordering a cup of herbal tea. Deanna assumed it was for her, but she walked into the bedroom and returned without it. The sharp edge had fallen off of Taurik's terror, but he was still terribly afraid of...something.

"Thank you for sharing that with me," Deanna said when Kir'xhan sat down. She was right, it could have just been her subconscious trying to sort things out, but the odd details and the way Taurik had fled in terror when she started to recount it...

It meant something. Deanna just wished she knew what.


	7. Chapter 7

She got to the bridge and all but collapsed into her chair.

Will was in the captain's chair, and looked at her over the top of his PADD. "Rough morning?"

"T'Vri died."

She felt the sympathy in his emotional radiation. "Are you okay?"

"I will be," she said. She had the sudden urge to ask him for a hug. She gave herself a little mental shake. That would be completely inappropriate behavior on the bridge. On a Betazed ship, no one would have thought anything of it, but on a mixed-culture ship like the Enterprise, everyone had to adapt.

Will said with a forced brightness, "We built a nuclear bomb."

Deanna, glad of the distraction, grinned. "We did?"

"Engineering got very excited. Apparently they're a lot of fun to make, and even more fun to detonate." Most sentient species had a least a subset of people who liked building things that had no function other than to blow up in a spectacular fashion. Deanna herself wasn't immune to the appeal.

"Are we trying to replicate the _Psthan_ 's distress beacon?" she asked.

He nodded. "It's far from certain to bring back the same people who came by last time, but the captain decided it was worth trying. We can't wait around here forever, but we can afford to give it a day, maybe two. We'll boost long range scanners to the absolute limits, and if nothing shows up by then, we'll have to think of something else."

 _Saliva that can eat through a ship's hull_ , Deanna thought.

"It's a risk," Will said, possibly subconsciously reading her thoughts. "But we need answers."

It was only a few minutes later that Geordi sent a message saying they'd finished. Apparently if a nearly dead ship with no gravity and only emergency flashlights for illumination could put together a nuclear bomb in six hours, a fully staffed and functional engineering department only needed ninety minutes, and half of that was spent on making sure the radiation was properly contained.

Even Picard came out of his ready room to watch the explosion, projected on the main viewer. A drone carried the device out to a safe distance, and then scurried back to the ship. Control of the device was patched through to tactical. The officer standing at that console looked at the captain.

"Shields up," Picard said. She complied, but her emotional radiation turned incredulous. Picard must have been able to see that on her face, because he said, "It is still a bomb, Lieutenant, and a powerful one. Let us not be cocky just because we have far more destructive weapons at our disposal."

"Yes sir."

"All hands, this is the bridge," Riker said. "We will be detonating a nuclear bomb 816 kilometers off of the port side of the ship in approximately ten seconds, and I'm sure many of you want to watch. Visual feed is on the public channel." Deanna could easily imagine nearly every computer screen on the ship being quickly flipped to display the public channel--generally the most boring and ignored feed on the ship, displaying only statuses and statistics that no one paid attention to unless something had gone very wrong. Even the feed that Doctor Br'kan had set up of his thotas plants was more popular, although that was mostly because people said the soft sounds of their tendrils brushing against the carpet of moss underneath helped them to sleep.

"Weapon armed and ready," the tactical position said. She looked at the captain. "Detonation at your order."

"Detonate."

The bright flash was dimmed by the viewscreen to something that wouldn't blind them, but Deanna still squinted at the initial explosion. For a moment, it looked as if a new sun had appeared off of the bow of the ship, and then the light dissipated, and then faded entirely.

"Radiation levels within acceptable parameters," the tactical station reported. "EMP shielding fully effective. No system damage."

"Very good," Picard said. He was still staring at the screen, hands clasped behind his back. He was thoughtful. When he finally turned back, he said, "Nearly every Federation world discovered the practical applications of nuclear fission prior to leaving their gravity well, but only eight planets pursued the military potential of the technology, and only two used it in warfare: Earth and Vulcan."

"What's the statistic?" Will asked. "Pre-contact civilizations that use a nuclear weapon in terrestrial warfare have a ninety six percent chance of either annihilating themselves or sending themselves back to the stone age within 100 years of developing the technology?"

"Indeed," Picard said, taking a seat. "When the Vulcans first started making contact with other species, they discovered that they were somewhat unusual for having irradiated large parts of their planet and yet survived long enough to develop warp drive. I think perhaps that is why they were so willing to come to the aid of Humanity when they found us similarly decimated by the third world war and yet still pushing forward, striving to explore and learn."

"700 billion tons of aid over ten years," Will said. "And this was before replicators were perfected."

"Yes. Although they provided much of it in the form of emergency rations, and if you read memoirs from the time period, most people were heartily sick of 'those horrible little brown blocks' by the third year."

"I can't even imagine living on Vulcan emergency rations for years." Will's emotional radiation turned sad. "Still, it's better than starving to death."

Deanna listed to the conversation with interest. Although she had a basic knowledge of Earth history, she had never really looked too deeply at the horrors of the 21st century.

Will stretched his long legs out in front of him and laced his fingers behind his neck. "We owe the Vulcans. Humanity was ready to make a change, but we couldn't have done it if we'd continued on like we were. People without food or a safe place to sleep don't have ability to plan a better future even if they desperately want one. You can't think ahead if you don't know where your next meal is coming from."

"Yes. And many if not most would have either left us as we were, or used the opportunity to conquer us. Not many would have delivered not just food, but blankets, clothing, temporary housing, medical care, even logistical support in rebuilding infrastructure. And all of this in the face of rampant xenophobia and even the occasional hate crime directed toward them." Picard leaned back in his chair. "Humanity has made great strides in the last few centuries and we have every right to be proud of our progress, but we ought also to recognize that we were very, very fortunate in the beginning. Not only did we first meet the Vulcans rather than, say, the Cardassians, but we took our tentative first steps into the galaxy at a time of relative peace. Only a hundred years before, the Vulcans and the Andorians had been locked in open warfare, and certainly the Vulcans would not have had the resources to help us then. Indeed, we chanced upon the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites at the first time in almost six hundred years that the three species were not only at peace, but actually on good terms with each other."

"Relatively speaking," Will said with a grin. "None of them really liked each other. That's why it's kilometers instead of garkas."

Deanna smiled. She was familiar with that bit of history. The fledgling Federation had needed standard units of measurement and time, and as the other three species involved in the negotiations all had a long history of animosity, it was easier to adopt the units of the newcomer that no one had any particular grudge against than to argue garka versus crin versus tha'mal, or get bogged down in the details of creating an entirely new system of units and measurements. 

"There is an argument to be made--" Deanna said, "--and I have made it in more than one essay--that the decision to adopt Earth units, use an Earth language as the basis for Standard, and designate Earth as the capital of the Federation, has given that one planet excessive influence in a union that was supposed to be a collection of equals."

Picard nodded thoughtfully, his emotional radiation turning vaguely embarrassed. "Yes. The other three worlds were simply so tired of endless rounds of negotiation and squabbling that occasionally turned violent that when they realized all three of them could agree on using Earth for expediency's sake... At the time no one really expected the Federation to grow beyond a handful of planets, or for it to become as interconnected and powerful as it has become. I suspect they made the decision without giving due thought to the consequences."

"A lot of problems are the result of earlier solutions," Will said.

"Quite so, Number One."

*

It was a mere six hours later that Data said, "Commander, we are picking up a vessel on long-range sensors. Moving toward us at warp 9.3."

"Visual?" Will asked.

Data consulted his console. "Not yet."

Will moved closer to Data, resting his hand on the back of his chair. "What can you tell about it?"

"It is very large," Data said. "An exact reading is difficult at this distance, but I estimate that the mass is eight to ten times that of the _Enterprise_."

_It was impossibly large. It seemed, in my dream, to be infinite._

Deanna swallowed, and Will met her eyes before tapping his comm badge. "Captain to the bridge."

Picard came out of his ready room, nodded once as Will filled him in, and sat down in his chair. "How long until it arrives?"

"Fourteen minutes, eight seconds, sir," Data said.

"Opinions?"

"We wanted a reaction, we got one," Will said. "But eight to ten times the mass of the _Enterprise_. That makes me nervous."

"Agreed. But we cannot allow nerves to make us cut and run." He looked at the Lieutenant at tactical. "Go to yellow alert. We will assume good intentions, but we will exercise caution. Any idea of the tactical capabilities of that ship, Mr. Data?"

"The computer is having difficulty interpreting the sensor readings coming from the ship. It appears to have a design quite unlike anything we have seen before." He tapped at his console. "Regarding either offensive or defensive capabilities, I am unable to make a determination."

"This should be interesting," Will said quietly.

The next fourteen minutes passed mostly in silence. When Data announced that the ship was now five minutes away, Amal, the Bolian ensign at communications, glanced at the door to the head and shifted in her seat.

"Yes," Deanna said, "but be fast."

The ensign turned a darker shade of blue, and ran to the head, Data smoothly taking control while she was gone. Will chuckled. "Timing your bathroom breaks is definitely something they don't bother to teach you at the Academy ."

Amal was just returning to her station as Data said, "Alien ship coming out of warp four thousand kilometers off our port bow."

"On screen," Picard said. 

Deanna stared. Everyone on the bridge stared. It filled the entire view screen and more.

"Pull back the visual. Let's see it in its entirety."

The view pulled back. In the corner of the screen, the _Psthan_ was still there, a speck against the enormity of the alien ship. It was roughly spherical, but a lumpy and misshapen sphere. It seemed to be lit from the inside, and the outer hull had a very faint purplish glow. 

Will frowned. "Data, I thought you said eight to ten times. That thing's more like twenty times the size of the _Enterprise_."

"In terms of mass, it is eight point four six times larger than the _Enterprise_. However, it is less dense than our ship, and is accordingly larger in volume."

"They're hailing us," Amal said. "I think."

"Put it through."

A series of high-pitched sqwaks that made Deanna want to cover her ears came screeching through the speakers. 

"Translation!" Will snapped.

The ensign was flustered. "It's not--I don't--"

"Ensign, report!"

"I don't know! The translation program is having a moment, sir!"

"Having a moment?" Will asked. He walked over to the panel and tapped a few buttons. "'Translation unavailable, please try gesturing wildly.'" He made noise of disgust, but his emotional radiation was darkly amused. "I'd like to have a moment with whoever coded that error message."

"Crusher to bridge!"

Picard tapped his comm bagde. "Go ahead doctor."

"What is going on up there? One of my Vulcan patients just has a seizure, and another is--no don't give her that! Does she look like an Andorian to you? Whatever is happening, it needs to stop."

"I think we've found our problem," Will said, frowning deeply.

"Doctor, we have identified the cause of this mystery illness. We cannot run away now."

"Put the Vulcans on shuttles," Deanna said. "Get them out of here."

Picard shook his head. "We have no idea of the capabilities of that thing. Shuttles would be all but defenseless if they attacked." He stood up and paced the bridge. "Doctor, are we risking lives if we remain here?"

There was a pause, then Beverly said, "There's something I can try. I don't know if it will work, but I think I can keep them alive." She wasn't at all happy, which probably meant that her idea was both risky and going to be unpleasant for her patients.

"I think the risk is acceptable," Will said. "If we can't figure out what's going on, there's nothing to stop this from happening again."

Picard sighed. "Agreed. Doctor, if your treatment fails and the risk equation changes..."

"You'll be the first to know."

"Beverly, is Kir'xhan still functional?" Deanna asked quickly, before Beverly closed the channel.

"I have no idea." She was annoyed with the conversation. She wanted to get back to her patients.

"If she is, send her to the bridge," Deanna said quickly.

"Fine. Crusher out."

The comm link snapped shut. "Translation," Picard demanded. 

The ensign tapped helplessly at her console. "Still nothing sir."

"Data!"

"Yes sir." Data got up and crossed to the console. "The computer is trying multiple approaches, but none are having any success."

"Get someone from linguistics up here. Maybe they'll have an idea," Will said.

A few minutes later, the turolift doors opened, and Kir'xhan came out. She was pale, and there was a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead. Deanna pointed to her chair. "Sit down before you fall down."

Kir'xhan didn't argue. Deanna thought about asking after Taurik and decided not to. If he was in danger, Kir'xhan didn't need the reminder.

"What is it?" Kir'xhan asked quietly, staring at the screen with an odd expression.

"It appears to be the cause of the illness," Picard said. "They are broadcasting, but the computer cannot translate."

"The missing children are on that ship," Kir'xhan said.

There was a momentary pause as everyone digested this. "You're sure?"

"I am absolutely certain, though I can give you no logical reason for my certainty." She leaned back into the chair, as if the effort of sitting upright had suddenly become too much. Deanna went and stood beside her. To her surprise, Kir'xhan reached out and grasped her hand, and then immediately dropped it as if she had been burned. She was trembling slightly, and the force of the pain-fear-anger-hunger-exhaustion that was assaulting her made Deanna gasp.

"Deanna?" Will said, taking a step toward her.

Deanna waved him off. She knelt down next to Kir'xhan as close as she could without touching, hoping her presence was grounding and not offensive. Kir'xhan closed her eyes and began murmuring. "Dakh pthak. Nam-tor ri ret na'fan-kitok fa tu dakh pthak. Dakh pthak. Nam-tor ri ret na'fan-kitok fa tu dakh pthak. Dakh pthak. Nam-tor ri ret na'fan-kitok fa tu dakh pthak." The computer, completely helpless in the face of the alien language they actually needed it to translate, automatically offered up, "Cast out fear. There is no room for anything else until you cast out fear."

Deanna regretted bringing her to the bridge. Bad enough this was happening to her at all, but that it was happening publicly...

She shifted, the squatting position she'd taken already becoming uncomfortable. Kir'xhan didn't need Deanna to tell her how to breathe or give her perspective. What she needed, Deanna judged, was someone to be with her, grounding her. 

As close as they were and with Kir'xhan's mind seemingly entirely open, it was possibly to communicate mind-to-mind. _I'm here. You're safe with me._

Kir'xhan didn't respond in words, but in a flurry of images. Her mother gently brushing her off after a tumble. Her father wordlessly putting a hand on her shoulder to comfort her after a failed test. Taurik holding her after a long day for no reason other than that they both wanted the contact. And then there was a sense of longing-need-gratitude combined with hopelessness and embarrassment and a deep sense of powerlessness. Deanna, not sure how to interpret the images, said, _You're safe with me. I can't touch you without hurting you, but I am here._

Deanna noticed a few people staring and snapped, "There's a giant alien ship out there. Focus on that."

Everyone quickly got busy, or tried to look it.

Deanna stood up. Kir'xhan was slowly coming back to herself, and her turmoil was no longer taking up all of Deanna's attention.

"What are you sensing?" Picard asked, looking up from the communications console. A civilian scientist from linguistics was having a detailed discussion with Data and Amal, but it didn't sound like they were making much progress.

It was hard to focus. "I sense no hostility or aggression, Captain. But neither do I sense any friendly overtures. It's not that I can't sense them, but...I'm afraid that like the computer, I simply can't interpret the input. I'm sorry."

"Kir'xhan you're certain the children are on that ship?"

"Yes. But given my current mental state, my certainties should be regarded with some skepticism."

Will snorted.

"We should go," Kir'xhan said.

"Leave?"

"No, go to the ship."

"It's far too dangerous," Picard said.

"I will go alone," Kir'xhan said. "They are my people."

"They are not only yours," Picard said. "They are sentient beings and Federation citizens. They are the responsibility of all of us."

Picard looked at the ship on the viewscreen. "I want the entire linguistics and communication department working on that translation. I am not sending anyone into an unknown and potentially deadly situation without more information. In the mean time, continue to broadcast our standard greeting of friendship and peace, and add that we cannot yet understand them, but are working hard to do so. Perhaps they know what we're saying. That would make one of us."


	8. Chapter 8

Deanna took Kir'xhan down to sickbay and found it quiet, almost hushed. Every bed was taken up with a Vulcan. They weren't unconscious, but their minds were muted. Deanna gestured for Kir'xhan to sit on a stool.

"I used an existing Vulcan drug. I'll spare you the details, but it depressed their psilosynine levels," Beverly said, coming out of her office. "Nasty side effects, though, which is why I was hoping to avoid it. The end result is basically an induced t'vnarak syndrome. The Vulcans don't use it unless they have absolutely no other choice because sometimes the t'vnarek syndrome sticks around even after you stop the drug."

T'vnarak's primary symptom was a total lack of motivation. Untreated, people eventually stopped eating, drinking, speaking, and would relieve themselves where they lay. Prior to the development of effective drugs and therapies, it had had a depressingly high mortality rate. Deanna could see why Beverly had been so reluctant to go down this road.

"Will it work for Kir'xhan?"

Beverly hesitated. "Yes, but..."

"But a drop of psilosynine will disrupt the telepathic connection I have to my child, and will result in a spontaneous abortion," Kir'xhan said.

Beverly nodded. "It's entirely up to you, of course."

"I am aware, and I refuse the treatment."

Beverly's hand twitched as though she wanted to lay a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder and caught herself just in time. "I'm sure this baby means a lot to you, but if you die, we lose both of you."

"I know." Kir'xhan closed her eyes briefly and then opened them, the slight press of her lips the only symptom of her distress. "If my condition deteriorates to the point where my life is in the balance I will make the--the logical choice." She looked around. "My husband also refused treatment?"

Beverly nodded. "His reasoning was similar, although a disruption of the bond between the two of you would only carry a two percent risk of ending the pregnancy. But he wouldn't accept anything without talking to you. How did you know?"

"I can still sense him, strongly. He is agitated, and worse than before, not better. Where is he?"

"In isolation. He asked to be somewhere private since he's having serious trouble regulating his emotions." Beverly called a nurse over to take Kir'xhan to her husband.

When they were gone, Beverly sat down on a stool and rubbed at her eyes. "If I'd used this treatment a few days ago on T'Vri, she might not have died."

"Or maybe she would have. You can't know. No one should expect miracles out of you, least of all you yourself." Deanna suddenly wanted a lay down and sleep for days. 

Beverly looked up at her. "Do you ever get tired of having to be wise and kind all the time and want to tell everyone to just go jump in a lake?"

Deanna laughed, probably harder than the joke really deserved. "Sometimes," she admitted. She looked around, taking a mental tally of the people she saw. There were twelve--no, eleven now--Vulcans on the Enterprise. She saw six. Kir'xhan and Taurik made eight. "Where are the others?"

"In their quarters. I ran out of beds. I was going to open secondary trauma, but most of them wanted to get out of here. Being sick like this in public is hard for them. The three I let go all have either a mate or a close friend of a different species willing to keep an eye on them."

Deanna walked around to the beds, but no one reacted to her presence. Most had their eyes open, but were staring unmoving, almost unblinking at the wall. It was eerie.

"I'm going to check on Kir'xhan," she said, after it became clear she wasn't going to be able to do anything to help the people here.

Kir'xhan was in isolation standing a few feet from Taurik, who was sitting on a biobed, trying and failing to control his jittery movements.

Kir'xhan looked at her husband. He gave a slight nod and she said, "We have chosen to refuse treatment, for now, but the same caveat applies. If it becomes a matter of life or death, he must be treated, regardless of the risk to the child."

"Understood," Beverly said. She was standing at the door, looking in.

"What will happen now?" Taurik asked. "The alien ship." He made a vague gesture. "Kir'xhan told me that the missing kids are there."

"She believes they are, yes," Deanna said. "What about you? Do you sense anything about them?"

He laughed. It wasn't a happy sound. "I can't sense anything but my own terror." He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his head on his knees. Deanna gestured for Beverly to leave. Deanna had already seen this, but Taurik didn't need any more of an audience than was absolutely necessary.

"Do you want some ice?" she asked.

He made a gesture, thumb and ring finger together forming a circle, other three fingers extended. Deanna looked at Kir'xhan.

"That means 'no'," Kir'xhan said.

"It does?"

Kir'xhan gave a human-like shrug. "It means something far ruder than that, but my understanding is that Starfleet has rules about using obscene gestures on a superior officer. In context, the essential meaning is 'no'."

Deanna smiled. "I think we can let it pass." She wanted to know the precise meaning of the gesture, and how it had survived thousands of years of post-Surak culture, but she had already decided that all of the things the Vulcans were giving up about themselves and their culture due to this illness were being revealed against their will, and not hers to make an object of curiosity.

"Is there anything I can do for you? Either of you?"

Taurik didn't respond. Kir'xhan shook her head.

She left them alone, to sit, not touching, and try to take some comfort in each other's presence.

*

 

On the bridge, the communications station was empty. Will noticed her looking and said, "The captain banished them to the conference room after their argument got heated."

Picard's emotional radiation suggested that the banishment had been well deserved. "I think perhaps it is time to check on their progress," he said, standing up. "Data, join us."

As the doors to the conference room opened, they heard, "--can't believe you're going to stand there and contradict the Grand Mother of xenolinquistic communications theory!"

"I'm not saying Uhura was _wrong_ , I'm saying she didn't have access to the Starbase 7 algorithm because no one did because it hadn't been _written_ yet. And since she didn't have it, she didn't include it in her theory, and this is a classic Starbase 7 problem which means we shouldn't be using her method!"

"You think everything is a Starbase 7 problem!"

"That's because it's the only algorithm she really understands."

"Hey!"

"I'm just saying, if all you have is a hammer..."

Picard cleared his throat. Everyone stopped talking at once and turned to face him.

"I'm sure this is a fascinating argument, but we have some rather urgent problems at the moment, and I need a translation."

Lieutenant Gura, the head of linguistics, said, "It's an invitation. They want us to go to their ship."

Picard looked at two other members of her team and the comms officer in turn. "How certain are we of this?"

"Ninety-nine percent."

"Sixty percent."

"Not at all."

Gura threw up her hands in frustration. "It's the only thing that makes sense in context."

"To us. Makes sense to us, as we understand the context of this situation. If you'd get your head out of your..." WiChi glanced at Picard "...algorithm for a minute, you'd see that you're making assumptions about thought processes that we have no evidence for."

Amal raised a hand and said, addressing Picard, "It's also worth pointing out that even if we're right, it's just an invitation. They don't say for what. It could be an invitation to a dinner where we are the dinner. There's no way to know."

"Fantastic," Will said.

"Thank you all," Picard said. "Continue to work on this and inform me immediately if any new insights arise." He walked back onto the bridge. "Commander Data, Counselor, Number One, my ready room, now."

Picard took a seat behind his desk. "Opinions?"

Data said, "I calculate the odds that the invitation translation is correct at 77.368 percent, Captain, but I share the concerns of Ensigns WiChi and Amal that we must consider the possibility that we are dealing with a species that thinks entirely unlike we do, and that even if the translation is technically correct, we are not sure what their motive is for inviting us."

"Counselor, have you made any progress in deciphering the empathic impressions you are receiving from the other ship?"

"Not really sir, buy...I don't think they mean us harm."

"That doesn't mean they won't harm us," Will said. "When two species who are entirely alien to one another meet, good intentions can go awry very quickly."

Deanna acknowledged the truth of that with a nod.

Picard drummed his fingers on the desk. "Under the best of circumstances, this would be a difficult first contact. Given the complications of our present situation..."

There was a moment of silence, broken by Will who said, "'Translation unavailable. Please try gesturing wildly.'" Picard looked at him. He shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

"You want to go," Picard said.

"We can sit here working on the translation and hoping they don't get bored and leave in the meantime, or we can take the risk and go over there. Considering that there may or may not be three children who need to come home to their families, and we have a sickbay full of crew members who aren't getting better, I say we take the risk."

Picard stood and paced the length of the room, hands clasped behind his back. He stopped, and turned to face Will. "Very well. Assemble an away team. Data, see if you can coax any more detailed information out of the sensors. We need a safe place to either beam over or land a shuttle craft."

"Aye, sir."

"And, Will?" Will turned back. Picard only used his given name occasionally, and it usually meant that he needed to pay extra attention to what the Captain was saying. "Be very careful. We have no way of knowing what we're sending you into."

Will smiled. "I understand, and I will. Don't worry. None of us would have joined Starfleet if we weren't prepared to occasionally walk into the unknown."

*

Beverly called her on the comm on the way down to the shuttle bay. "Kir'xhan wants to come with you," she said. "She's adamant." Beverly sounded tired, and not just because she'd been pulling long hours. Deanna was pretty sure she'd made a valiant effort at talking Kir'xhan down before contacting Deanna.

"Why?" Will asked, walking next to Deanna.

Beverly sighed. "She says she has to go get the kids."

"If the children are there," Will said, "we can get them. I'm not taking someone with no first contact experience and no Starfleet training into a potentially hazardous and delicate situation."

"Commander," Kir'xhan said. "This entire situation has from the beginning been about my species. We are the ones suffering. A ship emanating from our world appears to be related. Is it not logical that one of us accompany you?"

"Absolutely. If I had a single experienced Vulcan officer available to me right now, they would be the first person on that shuttle. But all of my experienced officers are down for the count. You're a mathematician with no training for this sort of situation, and last I heard you were semi-functional at best."

"I need to come with you!"

Deanna stopped walking and put her hand on Will's arm to make him stop also. "Why?"

There was silence at the other end. "It's okay," Beverly said quietly. "Take a deep breath."

"I need to come," Kir'xhan said, very softly. It sounded almost like she was crying.

Deanna pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. Her mind racing. She tried to calm it and looked at Will. "She should come with us."

He gave her a hard stare. "Why?"

"Because she's right. Everything about this situation has been related to the Vulcans. And I am increasingly convinced that there is some sort of teleptahic presence over there that's doing this to the Vulcans on the ship."

"So shouldn't we be keeping her as far away from it as possible? What if going over there is enough to kill her outright?"

"What if she's the only person on this ship capable of communicating with them?"

Will sucked his teeth. He was frustrated, afraid, and tired. He wasn't the only one. "Kir'xhan, I can't promise you'll be safe."

There was a soft laugh on the other end of the comm. Her emotional control was in shreds. "My husband said the same thing when he asked me to join him here on the _Enterprise_. I came anyway. Perhaps I am braver than I ever thought."

Worf and Data were waiting for them in the shuttle bay, along with Ensign Hramahl. Worf wasn't the security officer on this mission. By Will's request, that fell to Hramahl, a Horta. Deanna wasn't sure of the reasoning behind that, although she suspected that Will was trying to get some diversity into the team. To a non-humanoid alien, a Vulcan, a Betazoid, a Human, and an android might easily all look the same. Kir'xhan walked in a few minutes later, flanked by Alyssa, who wasn't in uniform, and wearing a newborn in a sling against her chest.

"When did you give birth?" Will asked, somewhat perturbed by the sight. Worf was uncomfortable, Data curious.

"Eighteen hours ago," she replied.

"You should be resting," Deanna said. The baby was barely visible except for a tiny foot covered in a green sock sticking out of the sling.

"I should be," Alyssa said, radiating resignation and exhaustion along with a multitude of new-parent emotions--fear, awe, joy, relief---that she was keeping tamped down under her professionalism, "but sickbay needed the help."

"Is this good for the baby?" Will asked.

Alyssa smiled and reached down to tuck the errant foot back into the sling. "Commander, he's a newborn. He has easy access to a nipple and he can hear my heartbeat. As long as I keep him in a clean diaper, he's perfectly happy."

"Is this good for you?" he asked.

She waggled a hand back in forth in a _so-so_ gesture. "I'll be okay."

Alyssa of course wasn't going with them, although a mission of this kind needed a medical officer, and Beverly was needed in sickbay. The post of mission medic fell to Nurse Lak, an Andorian who rushed in a few minutes later with antennae waving this way and that, and apologies for being late.

They put Kir'xhan in the back of the shuttle, away from prying eyes. Her mind was as close to completely unshielded as Deanna had ever sensed a Vulcan mind to be. The fear/pain/hunger/anger came in waves. It was uncontrollable, chaotic, and terrifying.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Deanna asked.

Kir'xhan looked at her, and Deanna sensed a deep conviction and determination. "I am."

Will looked at Deanna, eyebrows raised. Deanna nodded.

"Okay," Will said, with a glance at Kir'xhan. "Let's go."

Everyone except Kir'xhan clustered in the front of the shuttle. "Data?" Will asked, his eyes on a PADD.

"I have identified a location that appears to meet the parameters necessary for a landing site."

"Do they have anything analogous to a shuttle bay?" Will asked, looking up.

"Insufficient information."

"Will the _Enterprise_ be able to maintain a transporter lock on us once we're over there?"

"Insufficient information."

"Is the answer to most of my questions going to be 'insufficient information'?"

"It is very possible."

Will sighed. "Well, none of us joined Starfleet for the overwhelming sense of security it offers. Let's go."

The shuttle left the _Enterprise_ with Data at the helm. Hramahl was not small, and took up too much room to stay in the front, so Will sent him to the back with Kir'xhan.

Data took them down, below the plane of the _Enterprise_ , to a small opening in the hull of the ship. They passed through something that could only be described as a thin membrane, which immediately resealed behind them. The shuttle flew in a winding path, up, then to port, then down, through narrow corridors that seemed to be no more than half a meter from the sides of the shuttle.

Will put his hand on Data's shoulder and bent down to look at the control panel. "Do you know where you're going?"

"Yes, sir." Data said, and pulled up a schematic of the alien ship, based on his scans, showing their location as a moving blue dot, and their destination marked with a yellow dot. Will would have seen this before they left, and approved the plan, but he still relaxed at the sight.

They finally landed in a chamber about 500 meters inside the ship. The ground was spongy, and covered in a layer of something not entirely unlike moss. Deanna thought she could hear it squish as they set down, but that was probably just her imagination.

"Atmosphere? Gravity?"

"Consistent with our shipboard estimations. Gravity at 0.62g, atmosphere is breathable."

Lak read over the readings. "There are a lot of aromatic compounds out there. I have scent blockers if you want them."

Will and Deanna took her up on that. Snorting scent blocker nasal spray wasn't exactly dignified, but it was better than throwing up in front of your new alien friends. Lak used some too. Data, of course, didn't need any. Deanna got up to check on Kir'xhan and found her draped across Hramahl, one hand running back and forth across his back.

"She said my mind feels like a warm breeze," he said. "Whatever that means." Horta used a computerized voder to transmit their speech. Most left it on the default mechanical setting, but Hramahl had his set to an accent that Deanna finally identified as Earth-Irish. Interesting choice.

Deanna knelt down next to Kir'xhan. "Are you still with us?"

She took a deep breath and sat up. "Yes." She pushed her hair back from her face. "Thank you."

Hramahl wiggled happily. "Glad to be of help."

She was calmer, being with Hramahl. Something of what she was getting from his mind was either soothing or blocking out the other sensations. Deanna decided to keep them in proximity to one another if she could.

Deanna gave her the scent blocker and told her how to use it, and then the entire away team existed the shuttle.

The ground did indeed seem to squish beneath their feet. Even with the scent blocker, she could taste something acrid in the back of her throat. Lak was taking readings and didn't seem concerned, so she decided to ignore it. The oxygen level was a low enough that Will ordered them all to be injected with tri-ox, excepting Kir'xhan, who didn't need it, and Hramahl, who didn't breathe oxygen at all.

The cavern they found themselves in was about a hundred meters and roughly spherical. It had the same faint purple glow as the outside of the ship. It seemed to emanate from a bio-luminescent substance coating the walls. Looking up, she could see what looked like plants hanging from the ceiling. There was no noise, and no motion except the movement of the away team members, bending to examine the moss, running various scans, and just looking around looking for some clue as to what came next.

Will tapped his comm badge. "Riker to _Enterprise_."

Nothing. He met her eyes, but didn't say anything. If comms weren't getting through, that also meant there was little chance of a beam out. They were on their own.

Deanna checked on Kir'xhan, who had knelt down. The knees of her jumpsuit were wet and she had her hand pressed against the ground. Deanna squatted next to her. "Does this remind you of your dream?"

Kir'xhan picked her hand up and wiped it on her pants. "No. But it does feel familiar."

They felt it first, a gentle rumbling that made the ground vibrate.

"There," Data said, pointing to a corridor that exited the chamber, not the one they had come in.

"What is it?" Will asked, he had his tricorder out as well.

"A lifeform, certainly," Data said. He tapped at his tricorder. Before he could say more, they saw it. It was larger than the shuttle and frankly, with apologies to all of the professors who had tried to instill in her the beauty of every living creature, hideous. It looked slug-like, but it heaved its huge body across the ground with surprising speed.

Kir'xhan had gone completely pale and was shaking. Without thinking, Deanna laid a hand on her shoulder. She promptly fainted.


	9. Chapter 9

They were in a mind construct, and a surprisingly powerful and detailed one at that.

Her Telepathic Theory professor at the Academy appeared in front of her. "What we call a mind construct is the mental construction of a telepathic encounter that an individual's mind creates to give context and concrete reality to a purely thought-based experience. They are highly idiosyncratic things. Each person experiencing the telepathic contact will create a different sort of reality. The experience of the mind construct is also unique to each contact. In some cases, there's no construct at all, and the contact is mind to mind, thought to thought, with no attempt to conceptualize it beyond a purely telepathic event. In other cases, the construct is purely auditory, so that the mind 'hears' what is being said as a sort of auditory hallucination. And then we get into the events in which a person seems to be transported into another reality. The body, of course, remains right where it is, but in order to protect itself, the mind tries to create something real and concrete through which to process the telepathic contact.

"In general, the more alien the mind, the more detailed and seemingly real the mind construct will be."

"Fascinating."

Deanna spun around to find Kir'xhan standing behind her. Her Telepathic Theory professor had vanished when she turned back around. She looked around. Her mind had re-created one of the student lounges as the Academy, but unlike the real ones, this one had no line of cadets at the replicator, or students arguing about how best to solve their group project. It was completely empty.

"What are you seeing?" she asked Kir'xhan.

"A lecture hall at the VSA," she replied.

Interesting. They'd both taken themselves to an educational setting. It was a bad idea to read too much into what your mind created in these sorts of situations, but there were times when the subconscious was on the nose.

Deanna sat down and tried to keep her mind clear. Things tended to pop into and out of existence in a mind construct, like her Telepathic Theory professor showing up to rehash information she already knew just because she happened to be thinking about it. Kir'xhan took a nearby seat. Taurik appeared out of nowhere, looked directly at Kir'xhan and said, "I need you. Do not fail me."

He vanished.

Deanna decided not to comment. Their stray thoughts were bleeding into each other's mind constructs, and they were going to see things that the other had not intended to reveal.

The alien, when it appeared, looked much like it had in reality, but smaller. Small enough to occupy the space in front of them without either of them having to stand up or crane their necks. Even in the mind space, she 'heard' the creature speak telepathically.

_I am ready to die for my crimes._

"What?" said Deanna. Captain Picard briefly appeared to remind her that this was not one of the recommended scripts for first contact. She cleared her throat and tried again. "We aren't here to kill you for any crimes. My name is Deanna Troi. This is Kir'xhan. We are representatives of the United Federation of Planets, and we come on a mission of peaceful exploration seeking an exchange of knowledge and friendship between our cultures."

The wave of anguish that came over the creature made Deanna physically hurt. _No exchange. No friendship._

"Do you have a name?" Deanna asked. It was easier to form a connection with a name.

What came across was a thought of star-dust-flare-light-color.

"Nebula?" Deanna asked, and got a feeling of tentative affirmation. It wasn't quite correct, but it would do for now.

 _You are alike, but not,_ Nebula said.

"We're different species. I'm from a planet called Betazed. Kir'xhan is from Vulcan. Have you met other species before?"

_No. The Remnant escaped from the monsters, but I did not exist then._

"Is that your people? The Remnant."

Pain and loneliness flared up. _They were, until my crime._

"Who were the monsters? Do you know?"

An army of Borg drones surrounded them for a moment. Deanna shivered.

"Do you know how long ago your people were attacked by the Borg?"

_Two breeding days ago._

That wasn't especially helpful, but Deanna got a sense of a long period of time, perhaps centuries.

Nebula shuffled closer to Kir'xhan, who went very still.

_I killed one like you._

Kir'xhan raised an eyebrow. Oddly, she seemed to be more in control than she had been before. "Like me?"

_Vulcan. Mother._

"May I ask why?"

Guilt-anguish-terror-fear assaulted Nebula, and Kir'xhan and Deanna by proxy. The scene around them shifted. They were watching, both inside the alien ship and outside of it at the same time, as the ship extended a tendril toward the _Psthan_. It was a hollow tube that attached to the side of the _Psthan_. Nebula crept down that tendril, and stopped at the outside of the ship. She touched it, tentatively, and found that it crumbled away under her touch. Afraid of damaging the delicate ship, she stuck her head through the hole she had created.

There were people here, she could feel them, and reached out with her mind.

A panel slid open, and a Vulcan woman stood at the door, wearing an oxygen mask. The air outside of the sanctuary room would have been mostly CO2, Deanna thought.

The Vulcan woman--T'Har, Deanna remembered--raised her hand in the ta'al. Her mouth was moving, but nothing of sense was coming out. Of course not. They weren't watching a recording, they were watching a reconstruction of Nebula's memories. Nebula wouldn't have understood her, so she would have no memory of what had been said.

Nebula was excited, and scared. T'Har looked like one of the monsters, but she didn't feel like a monster. And she was a mother. A mother could not be a monster. So Nebula sent a greeting, spitting at her, T'Har was burned to death by the acid, just as they'd seen the evidence of on the ship.

Nebula felt it all, all the agony of death, and all the fear for the children left behind. She stared in horror at what she had done, and then at the three children staring at her terrified. She remembered then what she hadn't before, that the monsters dissolved when touched by their sensory organs too. That was why, according to the history, the monsters had left their world and tried to destroy them from space.

Nebula stared at the children. Their mother was dead. She had killed their mother. Carefully, she gathered up the children in a nursery sack and took them back to the ship.

The scene shifted again, and Deanna found herself back in the lounge.

"Where are the children now?" Kir'xhan asked.

_They have been returned to you. I did the best I could. And now, I will die for my crime._

"We aren't going to kill you for a mistake," Deanna said.

A Vulcan man appeared. "As far as possible, do not kill."

Deanna looked at Kir'xhan. "Surak?"

"Yes."

_I killed a mother! Surely I deserve to die for this. You are both mothers._

Kir'xhan looked at Deanna with a raised eyebrow.

"It's...complicated," Deanna said. Ian's human form appeared and disappeared. "But I'm also not entirely sure what she means by mother. Concepts like that can be tricky. She might simply mean female. Or something else entirely. Nebula, in our culture, people who can gestate a baby aren't more important than people who can't. And, regardless, of who you killed, we aren't inclined to take vengeance for an accident. It's not who we are."

Nebula was still and silent. Deanna could feel her thinking.

_Will you kill for mercy?_

"...only under the most in extreme circumstances," Deanna said, cautiously. "Do you want to die?"

_The Remnant banished me for my crime. I could not die before, because the children needed care, but now I want my banishment to end._

"You know," said Lwaxana Troi, "if you came home to Betazed and got married and stopped running around the galaxy on a that spaceship of yours, you wouldn't have to counsel suicidal people with an alien psychology you don't begin to understand."

"Go away, Mother," Deanna said, and Lwaxana vanished.

If only it were that easy in reality.

"Nebula...death is--" No. She had no way of knowing how the Remnant viewed death. "For us, death has a finality to it that we prefer to avoid. There's a saying, 'where there's life, there's hope.' Is there no hope that the Remnant might take you back? Is there nothing that we can do to improve your situation short of killing you?"

Deanna sensed an overwhelming surge of anguish, but on its heels, something like hope.

"The one you killed would not want you to die for your error, and one of her Honored Foremothers would speak for you, if necessary."

Deanna looked at Kir'xhan. "Are you sure about that?" she asked, unable to repress the thought before it was "said".

"I am. No Vulcan clan would refuse the request."

"Nebula, just let us at least try to help you. Give us a little time."

There was no response. The mindspace vanished.

*

Deanna returned to herself with Kir'xhan at her side and Will kneeling over both of them. About half a meter away, Hramahl was very still. He was feeling scared, and protective. She sat up, putting her hand to her head. Next to her, Kir'xhan had begun to stir. Will was talking to her, but his voice sounded far away. She squeezed his upper arm, trying to communicate that she would be okay without having to speak. She didn't feel able to make words quite yet.

Nebula was gone.

"Water?" Deanna managed to ask. Her throat had gone dry.

Will fumbled for a canteen and gave it to her. As she drank, she focused on everything around her, trying to re-acclimate herself to the physical world outside of the mindspace.

She handed back the canteen. "Where did Nebula go?"

"Nebula? Is that the alien?"

"Yes." She looked around. "Where is our shuttle?"

Will helped her to her feet. "Nebula went back the way she came. I told Lak to take the kids in the shuttle back to the _Enterprise_ , but I wasn't sure what would happen if I moved you and Kir'xhan, so I decided to stay here with you."

"The kids?" Kir'xhan asked. She was slowly getting to her feet.

"The alien--Nebula...she sort of...extruded them from her body in a sack. It was..." He rubbed his neck. "...it was disgusting. But amazingly, those kids were still alive. Somehow."

Kir'xhan stepped closer to them and stumbled on the spongy ground. Will grabbed her by instinct, and then began to apologize.

"No," Kir'xhan said. "I'm..." She paused, her eyes flicking back and forth. She looked at Deanna and said with some surprise, "I am well."

Deanna was having a hard time focusing on anything, but Kir'xhan seemed steady. The strongest thing Deanna could sense from her was overwhelming relief.

She turned back to Will. "I'm pretty sure that Nebula is a powerful psi whose telepathy is, probably for no reason other than a quirk of biology, almost perfectly attuned to Vulcan minds. As long as she was holding those kids within herself, she was broadcasting their pain right into the minds of our crew members."

Kir'xhan nodded slowly. "Yes. They were scared, angry, hurting--"

"Hungry," Will offered. "I don't know what Nebula was feeding them, but it wasn't anything they could properly digest. They're severely malnourished."

"That explains the binge eating," Deanna said. She looked at Will. "It's like they've had a suffering child screaming in their hindbrain for weeks, but it was all buried deep in their subconscious. They were feeling what those kids were feeling, but they couldn't make sense of it, so all they could do was react to it."

Will winced in sympathy.

"What about Nebula?" Kir'xhan asked. "Do you think she will harm herself?"

"I don't know. I sensed hope in her at the end."

Will cleared his throat. "I think I'm missing some vital information."

As quickly as possible, Deanna filled him in on what had happened between the three of them.

"You don't think she'll take this ship into a sun, do you? With us on it?"

Deanna shook her head. "She might kill herself, but not us."

Will looked out at one of the tunnels. "The shuttle is supposed to come back for us, with at least two medical officers, if the _Enterprise_ can spare them." He looked around. "In the meantime, we might as well explore, unless you got the sense that Nebula would object."

Deanna shook her head. "She feels incredibly guilty about what happened. I'm more worried about taking advantage of her than anything."

In the end, Will ended up wandering around the cavern taking readings on his own. Kir'xhan was exhausted, Deanna wanted to stick close to her, and Hramahl offered himself up as a convenient place for the two of them to sit. Deanna watched him wandering around with his tricorder, well aware that he was mostly just keeping busy so that he wouldn't have to think about the fact that they were alone in an alien ship and out of contact with the _Enterprise_ until the shuttle came back.

The shuttle returned a few minutes later with Data, Worf, and Doctor Martin. Martin strode over to them and began taking readings. He was mostly relived by what he was seeing, so Deanna relaxed.

Work frowned at Hramahl. "Ensign, it is not dignified to allow yourself to be used as a bench."

"Doesn't bother me, Sir," Hramahl said. Worf looked at Deanna for support. She shrugged. If it didn't offend his dignity to offer himself as a seat, she wasn't going to argue with him that it should.

"How are the children?" Deanna asked. 

Martin shook his head sadly. "Not good. Severely malnourished, and deeply traumatized. Doctor Crusher reached out to Vulcan for specialized advice."

"How are the Vulcans?" Deanna asked, at the same moment that Kir'xhan said, "My husband?"

Martin addressed Kir'xhan first. "Taurik is as well recovered as you seem to be. Doctor Crusher has started tapering some of the others off of the drug, but it's going to be at least a day before we know for sure if the recovery is universal."

"If my theory is right, it should be," Deanna said.

"Theory?"

She ran again through the events of the mind space, and her theory about what had happened.

Martin nodded. "Makes sense."

Deanna hopped down from Hramahl. "I'm worried about Nebula. If one of my patients expressed suicidal thoughts and then broke contact like that..."

"She isn't a patient," Will said. "If she sticks around long enough for us to help her we will, if we can. But right now I want us back on the _Enterprise_. I don't like being all but helpless in a ship controlled by a potentially unstable person."

Deanna frowned but nodded. With one last look at the tunnel that Nebula had come from and presumably left by, she got on the shuttle and went home.

*  
They were sent straight from the shuttlebay to sickbay. Most of the beds were still filled with Vulcans, although they were starting to rouse from the fugue state they had been in earlier. Deanna rubbed at her forehead and found Beverly. "Do you have anything for a headache?"

Beverly frowned and grabbed for her tricorder. Deanna rolled her eyes, but submitted to the scan with only a mumbled, "It's just stress."

After a few minutes, Beverly seemed satisfied with her readings and pressed a hypo against Deanna's neck. "That should help."

"Thank you. Where are the children who were rescued? I'd like to get some preliminary observations in so that I can start formulating a treatment plan."

"In a few minutes," Beverly said. "I want to take one more set of readings." She looked around. "All of my beds are full. Go have a seat in isolation. I'll only be a minute."

Deanna sighed, but knew better than to argue. She went into isolation and hopped up onto the bed that Taurik had probably only recently vacated. She wondered idly where he was. Hopefully he had recovered as quickly as Kir'xhan and had been able to go back to his quarters. He'd been through the wringer, she thought. And he hadn't exactly had an easy time of it in the six months leading up to this either, with his brother's death, his marriage, and now a baby on the way. Even positive stressors were still stressors.

The room was dark. For some reason, the lights hadn't come on when she'd walked in. She thought out telling the computer to turn them on, but her eyes burned from exhaustion, and it was nice to sit in the dark and quiet. She lied down and closed her eyes.

Taurik was going to need extra support. Suvoth had lost his wife. Kir'xhan was still acclimating to life aboard ship, and none of this was going to help.

She needed to petition Starfleet for an extra counselor, preferably one with extensive experience working with Vulcans. She fell asleep drafting the request in her head.

When she woke up, it was still dark and quiet. She sat up, blinking. Her muscles ached as she moved and her mouth felt gummy and desperately in need of a cleaning. There was a lavatory attached to the isolation room. She went in, splashed water on her face and rinsed out her mouth. She frowned into the mirror. Her uniform was rumbled and her hair was a mess.

"You're awake."

Deanna turned to find Beverly watching her.

"How long was I asleep?"

"About fifteen hours."

"Fifteen--" Deanna narrowed her eyes. "Did you drug me?"

Beverly was offended. "Of course not!"

"But you did manipulate me into sleeping," Deanna said, not quite prepared to let go of her outrage yet, even though she knew it was more a reaction to the stress of the last several days than anything Beverly had done.

"All I did was put you in a dark, quiet room. Your body took care of the rest."

Deanna sighed and relented. "I guess I did need it."

"I would say so," Beverly said, checking some readings on a wall panel. "Much better," she said, gesturing to some numbers that Deanna didn't understand.

"The Vulcans?"

"Everyone has been discharged except for Kir'xhan."

Deanna tensed. "The baby?"

"Is fine," Beverly said quickly. "There were some hormone fluctuations that I didn't like the looks of, but they've already settled down. I'm keeping her here just to be safe. And between you and me, Taurik is fretting like a mother hen over them, and would have balked if I tried to send them home."

Deanna nodded, relieved. She ducked into the small shower set aside for sickbay staff, and replicated a fresh uniform. Feeling better than she had in over a week, she went out into the main area of sickbay.

Kir'xhan was on her side, one hand hanging off of the biobed. Taurik was sitting on a stool next to her. He looked completely wiped out. Deanna considered ordering him back to his quarters, or at least to an adjacent biobed to get some sleep, but she was fairly sure he'd risk a court martial before leaving his wife's side, even if Captain Picard himself came down to do the ordering, so she let it go.

Kir'xhan rolled over onto her back and lifted herself onto her elbows. "Counselor?"

Deanna walked over. "How are you feeling?"

"Better than I have in some time," she said. 

Deanna looked at Taurik who said, "I am likewise nearly recovered."

"That's good to hear," Deanna said.

Taurik and Kir'xhan looked at each other, and then Kir'xhan gestured for Deanna to come closer. She reached out toward Deanna's hand, but stopped before touching her. "With your permission?"

Deanna nodded, and Kir'xhan took her hand. She guided it toward her lower abdomen, communicating her intent as she did so.

Deanna's eyes widened as she realized what Kir'xhan was offering. She settled her hand on the other woman's stomach and closed her eyes. Focused. The mind of the child was a wispy thread of sensation and feeling. It was so very, very fragile.

 _Hello little one_ , she thought, her thoughts coming in Betazed rather than Standard. _I'm looking forward to meeting you in person._ She thought for a moment, then added a Betazoid blessing. _May your path be easy and your days be full of joy._

She lifted her hand up. Kir'xhan gave her a small almost-smile of approval. Taurik bowed his head. "Thank you."

She looked between them and realized that by allowing her to imprint on their child, they had given her the greatest honor they could. "Thank you for the privilege."

Beverly stuck her head out of her office. "Do you have a minute?"

In Beverly's office, Deanna took a seat and Beverly began, "Nebula's ship is still here. T'Zar came off of the medication with no problems and was back on her feet within hours, so based on what you hypothesized about Vulcan telepathy being very much in-tune with Nebula's, the Captain sent her over there along with the rest of the away team to see if they could make contact again."

"Did they?"

"Yes. And it does seem that, ironically after all this, Vulcans are the best people to try to talk to her, or at least facilitate that conversation. Unfortunately, T'Zar is neither a psychologist nor a first contact specialist and didn't make much headway. The _Flight_ is on its way here. Her first officer is Vulcan and has extensive first contact experience, so we're hoping he can get a productive conversation going."

"We should try to contact the rest of the Remnant. Even if we can't convince them to end her banishment, they're a very different species. We could learn a lot from them."

Beverly nodded. "That was what Captain Picard said. Starfleet is very interested. Aside from the sheer discovery aspect, we're talking about a creature whose psionic ability appears to have taken down twelve people and killed one of them. Accident or not...Starfleet wants to know more about whether or not this could be weaponized somehow."

"The kids?" Deanna still hadn't seen them.

"The youngest is in intensive care. The other two are on the holodeck with Selar and Lak. We took them there and played around with the settings until we found the environment that calmed them down. As far as I'm concerned, they can stay in there until the ship comes to take them back to Vulcan."

"Have they said anything?"

She shook her head. "They aren't really verbal right now. Considering they spent nine months in a sack being slowly starved, I don't think we should rush things."

"I agree." If Selar and Lak had things under control, Deanna might not even get involved beyond offering support to the caregivers. 

When Deanna came back out of Beverly's office, Kir'xhan was sitting up with her legs hanging over the side of the bed. Taurik had pulled over a rolling table and gotten a pack of cards from somewhere. Kir'xhan watched him shuffle. "The cards are randomized between each instance of play?"

"The cards are shuffled between each hand, yes."

She picked up something shiny and about three centimeters long. "And these are...game pieces?"

"Those are deck plating T-locks from the engineering supply room down the corridor. I need to put them back when we are done. They are standing in for the chips that would normally be used."

He began to deal the cards, then paused. "I'm sorry that I didn't realize how hard it was for you to adjust to life here." Kir'xhan rested her hand on his arm. Deanna couldn't read whatever passed between them, but Taurik relaxed, and continued dealing. "This will be an advantageous game for you to learn,. if you wish to increase your socialization. There are several poker games on the _Enterprise_. The game I frequented occurred less often after Jaxa died and ceased altogether after Sam was reassigned to the _Ombuna_ , and I have not yet joined another one, but there are a few invitations that I can follow up on, if you'd like."

"Who was Jaxa?"

Deanna sensed grief, well-controlled and faint, but still present. "A colleague. A friend."

Deanna wanted to stay and listen to the rest of what he said, but she had already eavesdropped on a private conversation for long enough. She slipped away without a word. She had work to do.

end


	10. Deleted Scenes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was cleaning up my writing folder and found these two scenes that didn't quite fit in the main story, but which I am fond of anyway. Consider this the DVD extras portion of the story. ;)
> 
> Un'betaed, so please excuses any errors.

"How are you doing?" Deanna asked. They were sitting in Suvoth's quarters. He was wearing civilian clothes, traditional Vulcan robes and slippers.

"My wife is dead," was all he replied. Perhaps it was all that was necessary. Suvoth was still keeping his grief in a tight ball, not letting himself feel it, but Deanna sensed that he was at least aware of the magnitude of it and that was progress.

"What clan are you from?"

He raised an eyebrow, surprised by the question. "Svai-tor. Why do you wish to know?"

"I recently found out that in some Vulcan traditions, men don't remarry if they lose their wife."

He made a dismissive gesture. "Ithari nonsense. You may rest assured, there are many awkward conversations across bowls of overly spiced tea in my future, and at the end of them, one hopes, a new mate." He wasn't exactly happy about that, he wasn't opposed either. Deanna relaxed.

The door chimed, and they were both surprised when it opened to reveal Captain Picard. 

"Should I leave?" Deanna asked, as Picard entered Suvoth's quarters.

"No, please, remain," Picard said.

Suvoth was standing, but Picard motioned for him to sit, and gestured to a chair. "May I?"

"Of course."

Picard sat, and Suvoth and Deanna did likewise. "Lieutenant, your resignation came to my attention this morning."

"Resignation?" Deanna asked. He hadn't said anything to her.

Suvoth nodded. "Yes, I submitted it yesterday."

Before Deanna could speak, Picard said what was on her mind. "Immediately following a severe loss is generally a poor time to make a major decision. It may make more sense to take a sabbatical and see what you want to do at the end of it."

"Thank you for your concern, Captain, but this is not a decision born of grief." He looked toward his bedroom and then back. "I have known for a while now that Starfleet no longer holds much appeal for me, but T'Vri was not ready to leave her post, or her colleagues. As long as she was content, I could be also, but without her...I decided some time ago that if I lost her, I would return to Vulcan. My son lives there with his bondmate. They have room for me in their house, and have already found a research project in need of a cellular biologist, so I will not be unoccupied. So you see, it is all...settled."

Picard nodded slowly. "I hope you have not been dissatisfied by your time aboard the _Enterprise_."

"On the contrary, it has been professionally and personally rewarding, perhaps the most rewarding experience of all of my assignments. However, I have been in Starfleet for over forty years. I grow tired of operating within a strict chain of command, of not being entirely my own master able to decide my own schedule and choose my own projects. Starfleet has given me much. I hope I have returned the favor. But now it is time for me to take another path."

Picard nodded. "Very well. Then I will not delay your plans any longer." He stood and raised his hand in the Vulcan salute. "Live long and prosper, S'san L'hai Suvoth."

Suvoth raised an eyebrow. He was impressed, probably because Picard had managed a decent pronunciation of the family names. She wondered how long he had practiced them before coming down. He likewise stood and returned he gesture. "Peace and long life, Captain Picard."

 

*

"We are sending you healers," Xhenat said, by way of greeting. "Three of them, two trained specifically in child psychology, along with support staff."

 _Finally,_ Deanna thought, uncharitably and unfairly. Anyone they had sent before now just would have become another victim.

"Thank you," was what she said out loud. "We're sending T'Ul, Suvoth, and Navin back to Vulcan." T'Ul was one of the unfortunate three percent whose t'vnarek syndrome hadn't lifted with the cessation of the medication. Navin had gotten so used to restricting his food intake that eating had become torture and he needed to re-learn a healthy relationship with food. And Suvoth just wanted to go home.

"I read your notes," Xhenat said. "Care is being coordinated through their families."

"What about the kids?" Deanna asked.

Xhenat glanced away for a second. "They will be given the best treatment we can devise. It may be enough."

Deanna closed her eyes. She'd seen the kids a few times since their return to the Enterprise, but the Captain had asked her to focus on getting the Vulcan crew back on their feet, and since Selar and Lak had bonded with the kids, she hadn't questioned the request.

"The alien, Nebula, is she still with you?"

"Yes. _Flight_ arrived a few days ago and Commander Sethen made contact. She's...depressed, for lack of a better diagnosis. I've talked with her a few times, but her psychology is very alien. She's fixated on her...crime. Sin might be a better word because there's an almost religious intensity to the reverence with which her species views people capable of reproducing." After some long hours, Deanna had finally figured out that 'mother' meant someone who was not sterile, as it seemed some ninety nine percent of the species was. "It's hard to reason with her because she did kill someone, but the intent wasn't there. To us, that matters. To her...it doesn't. Not enough to cancel out her sense of having sinned horribly." She sighed. "Alien psychology can be so tricky."

"I am curious how you handled our alien psychology."

"You mean the Vulcans?" At Xhenat's nod, Deanna felt her shoulders go up a little. She forced them back down. "You have my records. I probably didn't do as good a job as you would have, but I think I handled it well enough."

"You misunderstand me." Over subspace, without her empathic abilities to help her, Deanna had to rely on Xhenat's facial expressions to guide her, and she was even more inscrutable than the average Vulcan, but Deanna thought there was compassion and concern in her eyes. "I am not questioning your competence. I have seen that demonstrated many times during our short acquaintance, and I do not doubt it. Only I want to know how you have been affected personally."

Deanna smiled. "Counseling the councilor?"

"It occurs to me that you might need it. We are not easy patients, especially not for outworlders."

Deanna sighed and tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. She was in her quarters, and while she was still in uniform, had her shoes off, and one bare foot tucked up under her thigh. She looked back at Xhenat. "I understand and respect privacy, but your privacy mores are--seem excessive. It's frustrating. I feel like I can't do my job properly because I'm doing it with less than a quarter of the information I actually need."

She expected Xhen'at to try to justify Vulcan privacy, but she just steepled her fingers and went into the active listening mode that Deanna knew so very well.

"It hurts a little, if I'm being honest. It feels like they don't trust me. Actually, if feels like they don't like me. But that's cultural. On Betazed, withholding information from someone is an insult. A direct statement of distrust, and dislike. We're very, very open." Deanna, half-human, was considered something of a recluse because she preferred to keep certain parts of herself to herself. "It's--" She banged her fists together and bounced them off of each other, a Betazed gesture that signified incompatible minds. "It's the sort of cultural conflict that you just have to accept and move past. But it still hurts, to feel locked out." 

She scrubbed at her face. "You don't have to tell me I'm being illogical. I know I am. This entire episode has been an exercise in frustration and I think I'm just now feeling everything that I've been keeping bottled up for the last several weeks."

She paused. This was the part where, if Deanna had been running the session, she would have asked a probing question, but Xhenat said nothing, and didn't so much as raise an eyebrow.

"I feel like I accomplished nothing. T'Vri died. I didn't solve the problem, it solved itself once we met Nebula, and I did very little to help find her. I have no idea if we'll be able to help Nebula, and even if we can, it won't be me who does it because I don't have the time and I'm frankly I don't know how to help her. I can't help those kids. Maybe no one can. Three people are going home because they need more than I can give them. What exactly did I do except walk around asking people if they were feeling okay and talk a few people through their panic attacks."

Deanna felt something wet on her chin. She touched her face and realized she was crying.

If the overt display of emotion was making Xhen'at uncomfortable, she didn't show it. She inclined her head sligtly, and said, "It is my path to help people return to logic when they have lost the thread of it. As such, I hear many, many foolish things in the course of my work. Deanna Troi, that is one of the stupidest."

Deanna shook her head, but couldn't help laughing a little.

"Kir'xhan reached out to me. She wanted to ensure that allowing you to imprint on her baby would not harm the child. I was...surprised by her desire. Imprinting on a fetus is a thing usually reserved for the closest family. I thought perhaps she was acting emotionally, so I asked her to explain her logic. She told me that you consistently place others needs over your own wants and desires. She also said that you respect other people and treat them kindly, even when you disagree with them. Both of these were things she wanted for her child." Xhenat paused. "It may also interest you to know that she said that she is not entirely certain Taurik would have survived these last weeks without your support."

He probably would have, but it would have been worse for him, and as it was, it had been pretty awful.

"We are not a demonstrative people. We verbally express gratitude sparingly, and concisely, but whether or not you ever hear the words, I am confident that you have the thanks of the people you cared for. And you have my respect."

"I--that means a lot," Deanna said. She had needed to hear that more than she'd realized. The captain, and Will, and Beverly had been their usual supportive selves, but...

But they weren't her patients. She didn't need every single patient to recover and be grateful. She didn't even need all of her patients to like her particularly. She never would have made it onto a starship if she were that insecure. But she needed to have some sense that, overall, she was useful. Helpful. And, yes, appreciated.

"A long-distance counseling relationship has many drawbacks, especially given the occasional unreliability of subspace. I trust you have others that you can confide in."

Deanna smiled. "I have a very robust support system in place. You don't need to worry."

Xhenat raised an eyebrow but didn't object to the emotional term. "Very well. I am at your disposal, should you need anything."

"Thank you."

The subspace line clicked off without so much as a goodbye.

Deanna undressed, indulged in a long shower, and, although it was by no means late, crawled into bed for an early evening.

The next morning, only a few minutes before she was supposed to be awake anyway, Will's voice pulled her out of her sleep. She tapped her comm badge.

"Troi here."

"What do you know about Bolian psychology?"

"...a fair amount."

"Can you come to my office?"

She sighed. "Ten minutes."

"I'll have the coffee waiting."


End file.
